


There You'll Be

by Marblez



Category: Pearl Harbor (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 05:11:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marblez/pseuds/Marblez
Summary: WRITTEN AS PART OF THE JULY 2019 "FIX-IT" CHALLENGE ON ROUGH TRADE.Two life-long friends, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, struggle with the love they feel for each other, with the love they feel for the same woman, all amidst a war so terrible at times it seems impossible to believe that it’s real…





	1. Prologue

** THERE YOU’LL BE  
** **PROLOGUE**

Daniel Walker had been in love with his best friend for as long as he could remember.

Long before he knew what love really was.

He wasn’t sure when it had started.

Perhaps it was as far back as the night they’d been watching out for shooting stars, the starlight causing Rafe’s eyes to shimmer? That had been the night Rafe had called him Danny for the first time; no one had ever shortened his name before his best friend had.

_“Danny…”_

_“What’d you call me?”_

_“Danny. Don’t you like it? Daniel…Daniel doesn’t sound like you…”_

_“No, I like it. I like it. Thanks, Rafe.”_

_“No problem, Danny.”_

Maybe it was when he’d first helped Rafe to read after the older boy had confessed that the letters got all jumbled up on the page, their bodies squeezed together to shelter from the torrential downpour as they slowly worked through the pages of their schoolbook together?

_“I d-don’t…want…to go to...deb…said J-John…”_

_A wince._

_“Bed.”_

_“What?”_

_A confused frown._

_Danny sighed, indicating the word with the tip of his finger._

_“It’s bed. See? B-E-D.”_

_“…that’s a B?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Oh…”_

_“Look, the letters look like the word they’re spelling. See? It looks like bed. Try it again.”_

_“I d-don’t…want…to go to...bed…said J-John…”_

Or was it that wonderful day the summer he turned ten when the friends had flown for the first time, accidentally starting up Mr McCawley’s plane when they’d been playing in it and bouncing down the runway before actually rising into the air before Rafe had managed to bring them back down onto the ground? It has been thrilling, terrifying and wonderful all at once, the experience only made better by the smile on Rafe’s face afterwards. ‘Course his memory of that day was somewhat tainted by what had happened after even though it was the first of many times that Rafe had saved Danny from a beating a the hands of his father.

That first time, though, when he’d hit him with the piece of wood, had been different.

_“Daddy!”_

_“I done told you!”_

_A shake of his body by the strong hands holding his upper arms. _

_“You spend time playing with this stupid boy, can’t read, you ain’t never gonna amount to nothin’!”_

_“He ain’t stupid, Daddy!”_

_A clip round the ear, stinging and burning._

_“Daddy!”_

_“Come on! Get on back home. Now!”_

_A shove. _

_A kick to the backside. _

_“Get on up! You got work to do. Come on!”_

_A hand in his hair, dragging him along._

_“Come on. Get on home!”_

_“You let him alone!”_

_Rafe._

_“Daddy, no!”_

_A thud unlike anything he’d ever heard._

_A grunt of pain but not from him._

_His body released._

_His father falling. _

_“I will bust you open, you dirty German!”_

_“What’d you call me?”_

_A whimper, the kind he heard through the thin walls in the night._

_“I fought the Germans in France. And I fought ‘em in the trenches.”_

_A sob, shoulders slumping in defeat and despair._

_“And I pray to god no one ever has to see the things I saw.”_

_Footsteps._

_A hopeful smile._

_A feeling of love. _

_“You’re my best friend.”_

_A silent goodbye._

_A feeling of pity._

_“Daddy, wait!” _

Or could it have been the night when they were fourteen-years-old, the night that Rafe had begged him to help him learn to miss so that he could impress Mary at their school dance?

_“I don’t know what to do any more than you do, Rafe.”_

_“I know, but you won’t laugh at me if I get it wrong. Please. I want to kiss her so bad.”_

_“…ok, so long as you don’t laugh at me neither.”_

He could never be sure.

Sometimes it truly felt as though he’d loved Rafe McCawley his entire life.

As the innocence of childhood had given way to adolescence and the realisations that came along with it he’d realised that what he felt for Rafe wasn’t normal. Or, rather, it would have been considered normal if his feelings had been directed at a girl but not towards his friend.

The way he felt about Rafe was the way Rafe felt about Mary and Suzie and Helena...

It was wrong, or so everyone had said, only it didn’t feel wrong.

Not to him.

He’d been doing it for so long that loving Rafe felt as simple as breathing.

Still he’d tried to stop, tried to control his feelings, tried to be _normal_.

He’d tried to bury those feelings behind mere friendship but it hadn’t worked.

Nothing, not even taking Caroline Mitchell to bed when he’d been seventeen, had worked.

He loved Rafe McCawley.

He always would.

It was a simple as that.

And so, the night before his eighteenth birthday, Danny had climbed into the battered old plane they had used to play in as kids, running his fingers over the faded chalk marks on the piece of wood that had served them well as their instrument panel. He had sat there gazing up at the moon and vowed to himself that would stay by Rafe’s side for as long as the older boy wanted him. He couldn’t have him, not in the way he wanted, but he could still be _with_ him, could stay by his side, could keep him safe from pain and harm, could be there for him through thick and thin, through the ups and downs that life was bound to throw their way.

He could still love him.

So when Rafe made it clear that he intended to become a pilot Danny was right there beside him, enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps despite the issues it caused him at home.

His father never forgave him for joining the military.

He’d died still angry that his son was “throwing his life away for that stupid boy.”

They’d made it through the initial training together.

He’d helped Rafe pass the tests to qualify for flight training.

They’d learnt to fly side by side, rapidly becoming the best in their group, and had when the order had come through for them to join different squadrons Danny had immediately put in for a transfer. Mercifully it had been approved in less than a month, one of the other pilots who had gone with Rafe willing to swap with him so that he could be with his own friends.

He’d vowed to always be there and he always was.

Unfortunately Rafe had never promised the same.

_“How could you do this?”_

_“Well, Doolittle assigned me.”_

_A lie. _

_That was a lie._

_He’d always been able to tell when Rafe was lying._

_So that meant…_

_“He wanted me to get some real…real combat training in.”_

_…that meant that Rafe had asked to go to war. _

_“Well, guess what?”_

_Betrayal, burning like acid in his throat._

_“It’s not training over there; it’s war.”_

_A memory of his father screaming at the ghosts he could never get rid of no matter how much he drank, faces of his friends, comrades and even the enemy all long dead by then haunting him right up to the bitter end when he’d given in to his pain and killed himself. _

_“Where the losers die and there aren’t any winners…”_

_His mind, his cruel mind, switched out his fathers face with Rafe’s…_

_“…just guys who turn into broken-down wrecks like my father.”_

_“Yeah, I understand that, Danny, but I feel like I got a duty to go.”_

_No._

_He didn’t get it otherwise he wouldn’t be so eager to go. _

_“Don’t preach to me about duty, damn it. I wear the same uniform you do.”_

_Anger. _

_“Now, if trouble wants me, I’m ready for it, but why go looking for it?”_

_“God, Danny, come on. I’m gonna be twenty-five. I might as well be an old man.”_

_He wanted to point out that if he went to war Rafe might never get to be an old man but the words lodged in his throat, choking him as his eyes began to sting with the threat of tears. _

_“They’re gonna have me bein’ a flight instructor. I don’t wanna teach loops and barrel rolls.”_

_What did it matter what they did so long as they could still fly? _

_He didn’t understand…_

_“I wanna be a combat fighter.” _

They’d been interrupted by the others before they could hash it out any further.

Perhaps the love he felt for the older man was the reason his chest had hurt so much that day and every day since his best friend had climbed aboard that flight to England rather than the betrayal of Rafe leaving him behind so he could go and fight in someone else’s war.

It hadn’t hurt half as much as watching Rafe fall head over heels for the pretty nurse, Evelyn.

He couldn’t even hate her.

She was too nice.

She was also good for Rafe, passing him through the compulsory eye test even though he failed to complete it not because of his eyesight but because of his difficulty with letters.

She made him smile and sing and laugh in ways that no other girl ever had.

She made him happy and that was all that mattered for Danny.

And, unlike most of the other girls over the years, she didn’t try to get Rafe to push Danny away. It had amused him how some women felt threatened by his presence, as though the could sense his true feelings for Rafe even if they couldn’t identify what those feelings were.

Not Evelyn, though, never Evelyn.

She had done what no other woman before he had; she’d purposefully set out to become Danny’s friend, stating that if he was important to Rafe then he was important to her too.

It had been nice, spending time with her and Rafe, despite the occasional surge of jealousy.

He longed to be able to hold Rafe’s hand as she did.

To lean in a kiss him for all the world to see, staking his claim on the older man.

But he couldn’t.

She could.

But there were times when she touched him as well, resting her small hand on his arm or leaning against him as they waited for Rafe to return from the bar with their drinks or dancing with him, her manner every bit as open and caring as when she was touching Rafe.

And she smiled at him with the same smile she offered Rafe too.

It was confusing.

For the first time in his entire life Danny felt a flicker of something for a woman.

He found himself searching for her smiles the same way her search for Rafe’s.

He craved her attention as well as his.

He longed to be with her when he wasn’t just as he did his best friend.

Of course it was every bit as impossible as his feelings for Rafe were and so he treated these new feelings just as he did the ones he had felt all his life, burying them deep inside of him.

He couldn’t have Rafe because society said it was wrong for a man to love another man.

He couldn’t have Evelyn because she was in love with Rafe and he couldn’t, he _wouldn’t_ do that to his friend.

Sometimes he wished his life wasn’t so complicated.

And then Rafe was shot down.

_“Danny?”_

_“Mrs McCawley?”_

_Why was Rafe’s mother calling him?_

_“Danny…Danny, it’s Rafe…”_

_No…_

_“We received a telegram this morning saying that…”_

_No!_

_“…that’s he’s been shot down and is Missing In Action.”_

_His head swum, the world tilting precariously around him._

_“Danny? Danny, are you there?”_

_“I’m here.”_

_Was that his voice?_

_It didn’t sound like him…_

_“Thank you for letting me know.”_

_“Missing doesn’t mean dead. We…we have to keep praying that…that he’s alright…”_

It didn’t matter that the telegram had only said he was Missing.

He’d been shot down.

Rafe had been shot down on the other side of the world and Danny wasn’t with him.

He should have been there.

He’d vowed to always be there.

Why hadn’t be been there?

It had felt as though his life was ending, as though someone had plunged their hand into his chest and ripped out his still beating heart and he could barely remember what he’d said to the others when they’d noticed the terrible state that he was in after hanging up the phone.

It was early, barely past dawn, due to the time difference between Tennessee and Hawaii.

And yet he needed to see her.

Evelyn.

He needed to tell her.

He’d pulled on his uniform, his best uniform in honour of Rafe, and had driven over to her bungalow, desperately trying to figure out what he was going to say to her. And yet, even with all the words he’d come up with to say when she stepped out of the house he choked.

_“Danny? What are you doing here?” _

_“Evelyn…”_

_She must have seen something in his eyes. _

_“No…”_

_“It’s Rafe. He’s been shot down.” _

She had crumpled, folding into his arms and he’d held her.

He’d known that the devastation on her face was mirrored on his own, that the tears in her eyes were the same as those that fell down his cheeks as he buried his nose in her soft hair.

Rafe, the man that they both loved, one openly and one in secret, was gone.

Looking back he could admit that it was almost inevitable, what had ended up happening.

They were both mourning the same person.

It drew them closer together than ever before.

And without Rafe there was nothing to stop their feelings growing stronger…

_“Listen, I was thinking maybe, uh, I could come by some time or give you a call..”_

_No, that wasn’t right. _

_He’d meant to say…_

_“If I gave you a call could it come by some time?”_

_There._

_That was better._

_She was still frowning._

_In fairness he had woken her up to return a hanky, of all things._

_An excuse to see her again, of course. _

_“Once, maybe, if you’re not busy?”_

_Her smile was tinged with sadness but it was still a smile._

_“Yeah, maybe.”_

_“Maybe?”_

_“Maybe.”_

_“Okay, all right.”_

_That was almost a yes._

_He’d never asked a woman out before._

_He’d never asked anyone out before._

_It had always just been Rafe but now…_

_Almost yes was good, right? _

_“Thanks. Goodnight.”_

_A step back._

_Almost fall over like an idiot._

_“Goodbye. Goodnight.”_

_“Goodnight.” _

_She disappeared inside and his shoulders drooped. _

_“You’re such an idiot.” _

He was.

He truly was.

His love for Rafe still coursed through him but he was gone.

Evelyn was there and now that he’d given himself permission to let the feelings out there was no stopping them; a new fire burned within him alongside the first growing stronger.

He loved Rafe.

He loved Evelyn.

He was allowed to love Evelyn.

So he did.

He took her up in his plane, something that was so against the rules it was basically career suicide but he wanted to share that part of him with her. And then afterwards, when they’d hidden in the parachutes so as not to get caught, he allowed himself to love her even more.

She was glorious.

Her body soft, her skin smooth.

Warm.

Welcoming.

It felt like coming home.

Only Rafe being with them could have made it better for him…

_“Listen, Evelyn, I was just down at the beach this morning and I watched the sun rise and I knew that everything was gonna be different, that at this was the start of something new, in this place, in this moment, and I don’t care what everyone else says, you know?”_

_He felt drunk on happiness, a happiness he’d never experienced before._

_It wasn’t just his feeling for her._

_It couldn’t be because even his feelings for Rafe hadn’t left him giddy like this._

_He’d never had his feelings returned before. _

_Could that be it?_

_Could that be why it felt different?_

_“How can I not feel this way?”_

_Embarrassed all of a sudden, not one for stringing together such long sentences, he blushed._

_“I kind of like you.”_

_Her smile was blinding, genuine and with only a tiny sliver of sadness remaining._

_“Oh, you do?”_

_She sighed._

_“You have your tie on crooked.”_

_Her hands reached out, touching him, fixing his clothes for him._

_He couldn’t help but lean forwards, taking her in his arms._

_“Everything’s gonna be alright, okay? Everything’s gonna be alright.” _

He was convinced he spoke the truth.

Blinded by his feelings he could see no other future for them.

And then the telegraph arrived.

**I am alive. **

Three short words and it felt as though his whole world was crashing down.

**This is the first I could get word out.**

What had he done?

He’d ruined everything.

He should have known.

He should have _known _that Rafe wasn’t dead.

Surely he would have felt it in his _soul _if Rafe had been dead.

So why had he allowed himself to behave so…

…monstrously.

His feet were moving before he even realised it.

Before he realised it he was behind the wheel of his car.

How he didn’t crash on the way to the hospital he didn’t know.

Pulling over, heedless of just where he was leaving the car, he sprinted towards the main entrance. Rounding the corner he spotted two figures sat on a bench near the white steps.

Evelyn.

_Rafe_.

Oh God…

“Rafe.”

All it took was one look, one look filled with confusion which transformed before their eyes into an expression of pure and utter betrayal as he put together the facts of their situation.

Evelyn must have said something…

Implied something…

And Danny knew his own expression was one of guilt, of self-loathing, of regret…

“Rafe?”

Her voice shook so badly Danny felt like he was going to be sick.

He had caused this.

His weakness had caused them all pain, Rafe most of all.

Rafe stumbled to his feet.

He looked as though he was about to be sick.

So did Evelyn, in fact.

Danny whimpered pathetically.

What had he done?

He took a step towards Rafe only to be halted by a gesture of his hand.

“Stay away…”

Danny had never felt worse in his entire life as he watched Rafe stumble away from them, looking every bit the lost soul as he fled, and went to follow him only for Evelyn to stop him.

A glance towards her, taking in the tears in her eyes, and then back towards his first love.

“Rafe!”

“Oh, God, Danny,” Evelyn whimpered, her hands hiding her mouth. “What have we done?”

“I don’t…”

He couldn’t breathe.

His vision blurred, darkness closing in around the edges.

“I can’t…”

“Danny, you need to breathe,” Evelyn ordered, her voice trembling still even as she visibly slipped back into her role as a nurse, guiding him to sit down on the bench. “Breathe in.”

He was trying.

He was _trying. _

A hand took hold of his wrist, lifting his hand until it came to rest over her heart.

“Breathe with me, Danny.”

It was easier now that he had something to copy.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed to choke out. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry…”

“It takes two to tango,” Evelyn responded, regret making her voice heavy. He met her guys, hating the self-loathing and grief he saw within the blue orbs. “I’m just as guilty as you are.”

“No,” he countered, shaking his head. “No, it’s my fault. I couldn’t have him and I…”

His eyes went wide as he realised what he’d said.

Hers went wide in response to his admission.

“I didn’t…”

“Danny,” she breathed fearfully. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry,” he all but sobbed, the words bursting out of him along with his tears. “I’ve tried to fight if for so long. I love…I love him. But I couldn’t. And then you and him…and I couldn’t help but fall for you too…but I couldn’t…and then he was shot down and we…we _could_ be…”

“Oh, Danny,” she sighed, her voice now heavy with sympathy rather than regret as she pulled him into her arms, her own grief pushed aside for the moment. “I’m so sorry…”

“I’ve ruined everything…”

His friendship with Rafe…

Rafe and Evelyn’s relationship…

His and Evelyn’s relationship…

It felt as though his entire world was ending…

And yet the despair he felt in that moment was nothing compared to that which he would feel when the Japanese attacked the following morning, when he realised that he and Rafe were the only pilots to make it into the air to take on what seemed to be millions of planes.

~ * ~


	2. Chapter One

** THERE YOU’LL BE ** **  
CHAPTER ONE **

_“Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:_

_Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan._

_The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message._

_And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack._

_It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace._

_The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu._

_Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya._

_Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong._

_Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam._

_Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands._

_Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island._

_And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island._

_Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves._

_The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation._

_As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defence._

_But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us._

_No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory._

_I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us._

_Hostilities exist._

_There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger._

_With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph- so help us God._

_I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”_

_\- speech delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 8th December 1941_

Taking off from a moving Aircraft Carrier was nothing like they’d expected it to be.

For starters there was a huge difference between going over a line painted on the ground of the runway to going over the end of the carriers deck, plunging down into the water below.

Not that that mattered in the end…

There was also the fact that the whole thing was moving all the time, rocking back and forth in accordance with the motion of the water upon which the enormous ship rested, which had left some of them feeling unpleasantly queasy as they’d waited for their turn to launch.

However the most shocking difference between expectation and reality was the wind.

Everyone knew that the take-off speed for a B-25, the planes they were using for the raid, was about 80mph and that the carrier itself was moving at approximately 25mph. What they hadn’t prepared for was the fact that there was about a 40mph wind blowing which, combined with the speed of the ship, meant that there was already a 65mph wind blowing before they’d even begun to think about taking off. A B-25 should only need about 15mph to become airborne, particularly given that they’d spent so much time lightening their bombers in order to manage the lift off on the runway they’d used for their practice runs.

This meant that when the time came all bar one plane practically leapt off of the deck, lifting off quite a way before the calculated lift-off point they’d been working to and the one plane that did have a close call only had trouble because the pilot forgot to put his flaps down.

Danny’s plane was no exception.

Once airborne he circled the area, waiting for the other two aircraft in their sortie to join him and Rafe who had taken off directly before him, and couldn’t help but admire the sight.

They’d spent the last seventeen days on the Aircraft Carrier, _USS Hornet_, having joined the ship on the 1st April 1942; sixteen modified aircraft each carrying four specially constructed 500lb bombs, seventy-one officers and one-hundred-and-thirty enlisted men joining a ships company of approximately 2,500 officers and enlisted men. It was crowded to say the least.

Danny had lost count of the number of times he’d the urge to check on his plane and the payload that it carried. Of the bombs loaded into each of the aircrafts three of them were high-explosive munitions whilst the fourth was a bundle of incendiaries. These incendiaries were long tubes, wrapped together so that they could be carried in the bomb bay, but had been designed to separate upon release so as to scatter unpredictability over a wide area.

Five bombs in the payload had had Japanese “_friendship_” medals wired to them although none of these had ended up in Danny’s plane. Rafe had one of them, though. These were medals awarded by the Japanese government to U.S. servicemen before the war and their orders were to return them to Japan, prompting several of the men to chalk their own personal messages alongside them. Each of Danny bombs bore a message of some kind.

The reduced armament still filled him with concern even though there was nothing he could do about it now. He’d understood logically that they’d needed to lighten the aircraft so as to make the fuel they could carry last longer, therefore increasing the range that they could fly.

This didn’t mean he was happy about it.

They were flying into a hostile area with only two .50-caliber (12.7mm) machine guns in the upper turret and a .30-caliber (7.62mm) machine gun in the nose. Now, he wasn’t a bomber pilot by trade, had only made the selection for this mission due to his performance in the air during the attack on Pearl Harbour, but when the bomber pilots had begun to grumble when the rear guns were removed even he could understand why. In a fighter you were fast, nimble, so that in theory you could shake someone off of your tail and therefore only needed front facing guns. Bombers were designed to be steady, if not necessarily slow, so they needed a gun that could cover the skies behind them to keep them safe from behind.

Once all four aircraft had formed up together they turned, each of them adjusting to the pre-arranged heading which would take them all the way to Tokyo, and set off together.

“I had no idea there were so many ships with us…”

It was their rear gunner who had spoken, sat in his position despite his lack of any sort of a weapon, and it drew all of their attention to the ships disappearing behind them. Danny had known that there were quite a few ships with them, sixteen in total, but knowing was vastly different to seeing it for himself. As well as the _USS Hornet _there was another carrier, the _USS Enterprise_, whose aircraft had been patrolling the skies due to the fact that the _Hornets_ own craft were stuck in the ships hangar bays until the bombers had all been launched. With two task forces having been combined to escort them on their mission they had had three heavy cruisers, _USS Salt Lake City, USS Northampton_ and _USS Vincennes_, with them, one light cruiser, _USS Nashville_ and eight destroyers, _USS Balch, USS Fanning, USS Benham, USS Ellet, USS Gwin, USS Meredith, USS Grayson_ and _USS Monssen._ The final two ships of their group were two fleet oilers, _USS Cimarron_ and _USS Sabine_, who kept them all full of fuel.

Although they weren’t in one group anymore; the slower ships had already split off the previous day and could only just been seen in the distance. This group included the two oilers who had done their job and refused the fleet before they’d left and the destroyers.

This left the men in the plane gazing down at two carriers, three heavy cruisers and a light cruiser and even then it seemed like a lot of ships just to launch one single attack on Japan.

“They wanted to keep us safe,” their engineer and turret gunner grunted. “Make sure we get to Tokyo; no point in sending us on our revenge mission if we just get sunk on the way.”

Danny grunted in agreement with his explanation.

There’d been an incident just that morning which had reiterated the purpose of the rest of the ships with them for the pilot; at 0738 when the task force had still been about 650 nautical miles from Japan, it had been sighted by a Japanese picket boat and they could only assume had radioed an attack warning to Japan. The boat had been sunk whilst Danny and several others had watched by gunfire from the _USS Nashville_ and it had been this incident which has prompted them to launch ten hours earlier and 170 nautical miles farther from Japan than planned, hoping to strike before the enemy had a chance to organise a defence.

Checking that everything was reading as it should do on his instrument panel Danny settled back into his seat, glancing out of the window at the aircraft ahead and the left of him. Rafe.

The last time he had flown in this position had been during the attack on Pearl Harbour.

_“Danny, start that thing up and get in the air, now. I’m not much good without a wingman.”_

He still didn’t know how they hadn’t died that day.

They’d been bruised from their fight at the Hula-la, Rafe had been hungover and they’d been dressed in hula shirts and slacks. They hadn’t flown together in months, not since before Rafe had been sent to England, and Danny had never flown in a combat situation.

Hell, he’d never fired his gun at anything more than a stationary target before that day.

Every single moment of that fateful day was burned into his memory.

He could still remember how annoyed he’d been to be woken up so early by the sound of hundreds of planes flying over head, especially given that after their fight and the much needed talk that they’d had afterwards the pair of them had decided to just crash in his car.

_“Why the hell is the Navy doing practice this early on a Sunday?” _

Only it hadn’t been the Navy, a fact that was made painfully clear when the first explosion had sounded. Both he and Rafe had sprung up, turning to stare at the plume of black smoke.

More planes had flown over their heads.

More explosions had appeared in the distance.

As he recalled the moment that a plane decided to stage their car his eyes were drawn down to the scar on the back of his hand, a lasting reminder of that moment. Whether a bullet had grazed him or it had been caused by a ricochet he’d been all too eager to go by the time the photographer who’d been working on a shot beside the car had thrown himself into the back seat Rafe had just vacated in favour of climbing into the front had screamed,

_“Go! Go! Go!”_

He hadn’t had time to worry about the wound at the time.

By the time he had been able to worry about the wound had already begun to close up so they’d simply cleaned it and put a dressing on it although the lack of stitches meant that the scar was much bigger than it could have been. He didn’t care; none of his scars were pretty.

_“I’m with Navy Newsreel,” _the photographer had screamed as they’d hurtled down the dirt road, his hands busy checking over the various cameras hanging from his person including a professional lightweight movie camera which he was obviously the most worried about of them all. Satisfied they were fine he’d then wound the movie camera up and begun filming the planes flying over their heads._ “And I can tell you one thing; them ain’t Navy planes!” _

No.

Even if the explosions weren’t a massive clue the planes were flying so low by this point that it was impossible to miss the markings on their wings and side; the planes were from Japan.

_“They look like Japs!”_

_“I didn’t even know the Japs were sore at us!” _

_“Danny, you just get me into a goddamn aeroplane.”_

That had been easier said than done.

By the time they’d reached the airfield the Japanese had already begun their attack their, bombing both the runways and the hangers, strafing the area with bullets and targeting everything and everyone they could get within their sights. They’d taken cover behind one thing and then next, Danny following behind Rafe, and had watched as planes and trucks alike were blown to smithereens, as men crumpled like puppets with their strings snipped.

_“Danny, get me into a damn plane!” _

There’d only been one option left open to them.

They had to hope that the Japs were focusing their attention on the bigger airfields, that they hadn’t gone after the smaller ones that were further away from the harbour yet.

So long as they were focused in one place they’d stood a chance.

_“Come on!”_

Danny had led Rafe across the airfield, their mad sprint only slowing once when they had to wait for some terrified ground crew to stop firing across their path, and into the gymnasium.

It might have seemed like an odd place to go to some people, Rafe included, but it made perfect sense to Danny as he pushed through the hanging punching bags and literally ran into the desk in his haste to pick up the phones receiver and dial the number he needed.

_“Hello?”_

_“Earl!” _Danny had screamed with relief when the familiar voice had appeared on the other end of the line. _“This is Walker. We need to get those planes fuelled and loaded right now!”_

Goose, hiding under the table, had reveal himself then with an understandably terrified,

_“What’s going on out there, huh?”_

A hail of bullets had smashed up some of the windows before he could respond.

_“Danny, what the hells that noise? You guys doing target practice or something?” _

If only…

_“I think World War Two just hit us!” _

It was at that point that he’d lost the first of his friends, not that he knew it at the time.

No, all he’d known then was that Rafe was suddenly screaming for him to get down and he’d barely had time to drop down behind the desk before the window and a considerable chunk of the wall were blown in towards them by a terrifyingly loud explosion right outside.

He’d mistaken a bomb with a time delay for a dud, had lingered with another poor soul when the rest of the men around him had fled for their lives or so he’d been told later.

_“Danny!” _

Rafe had been there, scrambling to his knees in front of him the moment the debris had finished raining down over him. The naked fear in his eyes had been oddly reassuring; it confirmed once and for all that no matter had happened their friendship was still there.

_“Danny, you alright?”_

Hands had grabbed hold of his arms, pulling him upright as he’d responded,

_“I’m all right!” _

More cuts had appeared all over his arms, unprotected under the cream short-sleeved shirt he was wearing over his usual white vest, both now discoloured by dirt and sweat, and he was pretty sure some of the glass had gone down the back of his shirt but had ignored it.

_“Come on! Let’s go!”_

Rafe had pulled on his arms.

Danny had resisted but only so far as turning to grab hold of Goose.

_“Come on! Let’s go!”_

_“Goose, come on, man!” _

Moving together they’d managed to get back to the car which, despite the destruction all around it, had managed to remain intact. Piling into the vehicle, calling out to their friends to join them they’d sped away from the airfield as fast as they possibly could loaded up as they were; the guy from Navy Newsreel had even piled in with them and was still filming.

_“Where’s this place were goin’?”_

_“We got a small mechanic runway about ten minutes away, hasn’t been hit yet.”_

He knew why the Japanese had left it alone until then; it was such a small airfield that it only had enough hangars for four planes at a time and that included the one in the workshop. In terms of strategic importance it was the type of place that would barely get a mention at all.

And that was something that they had been able to use in their favour.

Of course, none of that would have mattered if they hadn’t made it there intact.

And hadn’t that been a close thing…

_“Zeros on our six!” _

He’d been trained about what to do if he got an enemy on his tail when he was up in the air.

He knew that he shouldn’t fly in a straight line.

That he should bank and dodge so they couldn’t hit him. 

But that was in a plane.

What could they have expected him to do in a car?

He couldn’t leave the road, the ground on either side was too uneven and too unpredictable to drive across safely given the speed that he had been pushing his overloaded car to reach.

_“Duck!” _

He had been the only one who couldn’t obey the frantic cry, his eyes glued to the road ahead and his hands clenched around the steering wheel even as the lead plane fired on them, bullets striking the car in an almost straight line from back to front on the right side.

Honestly he was still amazed no one had been hit.

_“I need more ammo, ladies!”_ Earl had been screaming at his team of mechanics when they’d pulled up in front of the main hangar, a jeep loaded up with significantly more than it would normally have been allowed to carry speeding away towards the smaller hangars. Given the chaos Danny pulled the car up in the space the jeep had just vacated. _“I need more ammo!”_

_“Earl!” _Danny had called out as everyone began piling out of the car, hurrying towards the hangar to help shift the mountain of ammunition. Danny was the last out._ “We good to go?”_

_“Yeah, mostly, but…”_

_“Get down!”_

_“Shit!”_

_“Take cover!”_

The arrival of a squadron of planes had them all scrambling into the hangar.

All bar Earl, that was, and Danny would never forget the inspiring picture he’d made striding out to his motorbike, pulling his shotgun out of its travelling pouch and firing it into the sky.

_“Earl, get in here!” _

Earl, the mad fool, hadn’t made even slightest attempt to take cover.

_“Hey, Sergeant!” _Rafe had called out authoritatively, voice tinged with respect for the man who he’d never met before that day. _“They come back around were gonna need more than a shotgun. You got any other weapons and ammo we can lay out some cover fire with?” _

_“Yeah, inside that ammo locker!”_

Whilst the others had gone to raid the locker, Rafe included, Danny had sought out Earl.

_“You said the planes were mostly ready ‘but’…but what?” _

_“Well, she’s down, she’s broke, she’s shit,” _Earl had responded just as Rafe had joined them, ammunition belts slung over his shoulder and atom my gun in his hands, gesturing at the plane in the hangar behind them which appeared to be literally in pieces. _“I got four left.”_

_“Ones good to go,” _he’d explained, indicating the plane sitting exposed at the end of the runway before pointing to the three in the hangars. _“Two need ammo, one needs fuel.” _

_“Fall out,” _Rafe had ordered. _“Load up in the bunker.”_

The “bunker” had been nothing more than a semi-circle of sandbags stacked up waist high but they run for it anyway, calling out for each other to_ “Get down!” _and to_ “Move!”_ and to _“Get ready to roll!”_ until every single one of them was crammed inside the small “bunker.”

_“All right,”_ Danny had found himself issuing the orders whilst at the same time accepting a rifle from someone. _“Anthony, Red, you two are gonna stay here and man the 50-calibre.” _

A glance towards each other and then his friends had nodded in agreement, Red moving to take the 50-calibre off of the mechanic that had grabbed it whilst Anthony gathered all of the ammunition everyone was carrying. Goose had grabbed the other 50-calibre gun and was already loading it up with ammunition, his eyes wide as he kept checking he skies.

_“Goose, you get up to the next bunker and you lay down some cover fire, alright?” _

Rather than acknowledging the order the surfer primed his gun and hissed,

_“Planes!”_

A shudder ran down his spine even then as he recalled the terror which had pooled in his gut as his eyes sought out the three Zeros that seemed to be heading straight for them.

_“Should we fire?”_

_“Stay down!” _Rafe had hissed, throwing out his arms to pull their rifles down after they’d all automatically raised them, aiming them as best as they could at the moving planes. He and Earl had been the only ones not panicking at the sight, the latter even going so far as to fetch a pair of binoculars from a nearby vehicle to get a better look at them._ “Stay down!”_

He placed a hand on top of Gooses 50-calibre to stop him firing.

_“No, goddamnit, hold your fire! Stay still. Nobody fire.”_

_“Oh, God!” _Red, voice devoid of his usual stutter had begun pleasing out loud, saying the words that had been going through his own mind. _“Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!”_

_“Hold your fire,”_ Rafe had repeated. _“They don’t know we’re here.”_

He’d been right.

They’d flown directly overhead at one point but had ignored the airfield completely.

Danny had been grateful that Rafe was with them as he would have let the men open fire, no doubt drawing the Japs attention and putting their lives at risk sooner than they needed.

_“Stay down.”_

_“We can fire.”_

_“No, no, no, goddamnit. They don’t know we’re here. Stay down. Stay still. Don’t fire.”_

_“I don’t see any ordnance,” _Earl had announced. _“I think they’re goin’ home.”_

_“No, they’ll be back,”_ Rafe had pointed out._ “We still got planes on the ground.” _

It was such a simple observation and yet, in his state of panic, Danny hadn’t made the connection. He’d known they were going to target the airfield eventually but, well, he wasn’t entirely what he’d thought their motivation was at the time; maybe they’d been working from a list, starting with the ships in the port, then the airfield by size or type.

Looking back it was obvious that the Japs hadn’t wanted them to be able to launch any planes, thus ensuring that their attack would pass unchallenged from the air, but in the madness and heat of the moment Danny had been existing from moment to moment.

_“All right, you pilots, listen up,” _Rafe had gone on, fixing his gaze with each of the pilots in turn before holding Danny’s gaze. _“Get all the airspeed you can coming off the runway. Don’t get on the stick till you get to the very end. When you get in the air, stay low between the buildings. You see any Zero on your tail, try to wipe him off. Don’t freeze. All right?”_

He’d made it sound so easy.

Danny knew better now.

Not freezing was one of the hardest things to do in the chaos of an aerial battle.

_“Just keep moving. Were gonna try and break ‘em up and separate ‘em. That’s we can take ‘em out one by one,” _he’d continued with his impromptu briefing just as the whine of approaching aircraft, bigger than the Zeros they’d seen before, began to appear, prompting Earl to raise his binoculars once more and search the skies for them. And all this time the fool with a camera just kept on filming them, alternating between filming the planes and the men. _“All right. P-40’s can’t outrun Zeros so don’t try. Were just gonna have to outfly ‘em.”_

_“We got high level bombers.”_

Bombers.

Similar to the one he was flying now, the thought prompting him to come out of his memory of that day long enough check at all of his instrumentation was still reading as it should be.

Everything was fine although it felt like he could do with increasing his speed.

This was, he knew, due to the fact that he was used to flying in fighters which went significantly faster than his current aircraft. Their speed was in fact absolutely perfect.

_“They’re gonna bust this hangar wide open,” _Earl had called out a warning, the memory drawing Danny back into the past as they flew towards Tokyo. _“Grab the 50’s; let’s move!”_

Not a single one of them had hesitated to make a mad dash out into the open.

_“Okay!”_

_“Let’s go! Let’s go!”_

A huddle of men that big must’ve been quite the tempting target…

_“Zeros!”_

Exposed as they had been there’d been no reason not to open fire this time, pausing to get off as many rounds as they could before continuing their desperate sprint towards safety.

_“Take cover! Take cover!”_

The first plane had opened fire on this near the front of group, made up almost entirely of the unarmed mechanics who’d been able to run the fastest as they weren’t weighed down.

Danny would never forget their shocked cries as they were hit or the thuds their bodies made when they struck the ground, somehow audible even amidst the chaos of battle.

The second plane had opened fire on those towards the back of the group.

The third had aimed directly at the middle of the group, one of its deadly projectiles hitting that brave fool of a cameraman and sending him to the floor, camera falling from his hands.

_“Goose, Danny, come on!”_

Danny had tried to reach Rafe who had already made it to the relative safety of the next “bunker” made out of sandbags which seemed to be stopping most if not all of the bullets.

It was when the fourth plane opened fire that he had his next brush with death.

A bullet had thudded into the floor directly in front of him as he’d been sprinting towards Rafe, a second passing so close to his face he had felt the way the air was being manipulated by the deadly piece of metal. It was instinctive to throw himself backwards at the time, landing hard on his back beside the cameraman as he opened fire on the planes overheard.

_“Danny!”_

He’d never heard Rafe sound so frightened before then.

His heart had been thundering in his chest as he’d flipped himself over onto his knees, his blood pounding through his veins as adrenaline surged through him in response to the close call giving him a boost that he had sorely needed. He could remember aching out for the poor cameraman despite the large bullet wound in the centre of his back, tugging on his shoulder to turn him over and then when he received no response dragging him a little way.

_“Come on!” _he’d pleaded with what he now knew to be a dead body._ “Come on, buddy!”_

Rafe, despite already being safe, had come back for him.

_“Leave him! He’s dead! He’s dead!”_

It had been then that the main hangar had been hit, the size and force of the explosion knocking them all off their feet and leaving them with a painful ringing in their ears for almost a minute afterwards, during which time Rafe had dragged up to his feet again.

Danny knew that had Rafe not been there he wouldn’t have survived the attack.

_“Danny, let’s run!”_

He remembered getting to the aircraft, scrambling up the steps with Anthony a step behind ready to help him get strapped in while Rafe had disappeared into the next hangar with Red.

They’d had the planes that needed fuel rather than ammunition.

Others who had made it to the hangar had frantically begun pouring cans of fuel into the aircraft with none of the usual care and precision they worked with, fuel spilling over the plane, the floor and worryingly themselves. None of them cared, they just wanted to help.

Danny had been fighting with the collar of his headset when the third hangar had gone up, taking with it the plane it had been sheltering and the pilot who had just started her up. 

One of the other men had indicated that all of the cans were empty.

He’d heard Rafe’s plane roar to life but had found himself unable to move.

Rafe’s distorted voice had sounded through his headset,

_“Joe, get out the way!”_

_“I’m rollin’! I’m rollin’!”_

It still made him sick to think of what had followed.

Earls voice had burst through their headsets,

_“Hey, Joe! Joe, you got three Zeros right behind you!”_

They could do nothing but watch as Joe headed down the runway, leaning out of the open cockpit to try and see the planes he had been warned about; they’d been utterly helpless.

_“You got three Zeros on your six!”_

Danny had known then and there that he’d been watching something that could very well happen to him if...when…_if_ he managed to get his plane out onto the runway to take off.

_“Turn! Turn!”_

He hadn’t turned.

He’d kept going straight.

The Zeros had fired…

_“Oh, God!”_

He’d never forget the sound of his friend final words of fear before his plane exploded.

Nor would he ever forget the way that his final cry, a mixture of anger and fear, had been cut off so suddenly as the radio equipment sending it to their headphones had blown up.

Danny probably would’ve sat there until it was too late had Anthony not shook him,

_“What are you doing? Get movin’! Get movin’!”_

Had Rafe’s voice not crackled in his ears,

_“Danny, start that thing up and get in the air, now. I’m not much good without a wingman.”_

A pause, so brief and yet it had felt as though it had lasted forever, and then,

_“I need you.”_

It had been those final three words that had snapped him out of his shock.

He’d needed him.

_Rafe_ had _needed_ him.

And unlike the last time when he’d been in a different country, a different continent, there had been no way Danny was going to let him down. It didn’t matter what happened to him, it still didn’t matter, so long as he kept his promise to be there for him; to be there for Rafe.

He wouldn’t, he _couldn’t_, let him down again.

And he hadn’t.

_“I got you.” _

His palms began to sweat inside his thick flying gloves as he recalled the minutes that had followed; manoeuvring his plane out of the hangar moments before it had been targeted and had gone up in flames, navigating around the men firing back at the enemy planes, not to mention the shell-holes and debris strewn all over the runway until he was ready to go.

_“It’s real tight, Rafe,”_ he remembered calling out as the two planes had begun to bounce their way across the grass as they couldn’t use the designated runway due to the wreckage of Joes plane blocking their path. Thankfully their time spent learning to fly crop-dusters on the McCawley family farm meant that both of them had years of experience with taking off whilst bouncing around. _“It’s real tight. Hey, Rafe, I’m not sure we have enough runway!”_

_“Get your airspeed up before you leave the dirt!”_

He doubted he would ever experience a take-off like he had that day.

Oh, taking off from the aircraft carrier had been nerve-wracking and complicated but they’d practiced for weeks in order to have the confidence they’d needed to pull it off on the day.

_“Don’t freeze,”_ he’d ordered himself, uncaring of the fact that anyone that was listening in would hear him panicking. They were hurtling towards a row of buildings, the one in front of Danny standing at least four storeys tall, and were completely exposed out in the open with enemy planes flying overhead waiting for the perfect moment to attack... _“Don’t freeze.”_

He hadn’t frozen.

His training had won out, his body responding as it needed to in order to get him airborne.

They’d left the ground together, rising over the flaming wreckage of a truck, and had been forced to pull as hard as they possibly could in order to make it over the row of buildings...

_“I don’t think I’m gonna make it up over this!”_

He still wasn’t sure how he had made it over the building.

But he had and, most importantly, Rafe had too.

_“We did it!” _Rafe had called out through the radio. _“I’m up!”_

Of course, just as was the case now, getting into the air had been the easy part…

_“We got Zeros behind us, Rafe!”_

_“How many you see back there?”_

Rafe’s plane had pulled ahead by then leaving it up to Danny to look over his shoulders, all the while keeping his plane under control, keeping the flight path erratic to avoid being hit.

_“We got five on our six!”_

_“Take it down to the deck, Danny! Now!”_

It had been the only thing they could do at the time but Danny still felt guilty for the number of people who he’d seen getting hit by the bullets that had been fired at his plane whilst he was flying as close to the ground as he could get, following the path that Rafe had chosen.

There was nothing to say they wouldn’t have been killed that day anyway given the heaviness of the fighting but even this realistic statement couldn’t assuage his guilt.

_“We gotta split ‘em up, Danny,”_ Rafe had called out as they’d approached the airfields red and white striped tower as close to the ground as they dared. _“You take left, I’ll take right.”_

They’d left it to the last second to split, a shout of desperation and defiance bursting out from his lips as he’d put every bit of strength he possessed behind manoeuvring his plane.

_“Earl, you better get some guns in that goddamn tower up there!” _

_“Okay,”_ Earl had responded to Rafe’s order through the radio._ “Okay.”_

The minutes that had followed had been the most terrifying of Danny’s entire life.

_“Danny, I got three on my six!”_

He’d tried everything he could think to shake the planes off.

He’d banked harder than ever before.

He’d flown lower than he’d thought possible.

He’d pulled up so sharply it had made his bones ache.

But nothing had worked.

_“I still got two behind me, Rafe.”_

He’d flown over the previously impeccable lawn outside the chapel, finding it scorched and strewn with dead bodies, debris, burning vehicles and men desperately searching for cover.

It had been then that a bullet had struck his wing, thankfully only clipping it.

At the same time Rafe’s voice had burst through the static,

_“Son of a bitch!”_

His heart was pounding as he remembered thinking that if he did get hit badly enough to knock him out of the sky he would have to try and crash somewhere safe, away from the men and women desperately trying to survive on the ground, supposing he lived that long.

At the same time he’d hoped that he was hit it would be quick.

He still hoped that if there was a bullet with his name on it that it would hit its mark true, that it would kill him swiftly and cleanly so that he wouldn’t be forced to linger on in pain.

_“Earl, do you hear me, goddamn it? Get some guns in that tower!”_

_“On the tower, yeah. Goin’ ten storeys up. It’s a long son of a bitch.”_

Danny wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d begun to panic when he’d accidentally found himself in an open space with nothing to use as cover or an obstacle, the Zero’s following him taking the opportunity to spread farther apart in order to fire at both of his wings.

_“Rafe, they’re all over me! I can’t get ‘em off me!”_

He wasn’t sure what he’d thought Rafe could do.

Swoop in and save the day like some knight in shining armour?

_“Danny, I still got three on my tail.”_

Rafe couldn’t help him.

Subconsciously his eyes sought out his friends profile in the window of the plane ahead of his, the angle and distance making it impossible to see more than the blurred shape of him.

_“Keep jinkin’ it,”_ Rafe had ordered him over the radio. _“Don’t let ‘em get a handle on you.”_

It had been too much.

His fear was too great.

_“I can’t shake ‘em, Rafe.”_

He’d done exactly Rage had told him not to do.

He’d frozen.

He couldn’t think.

He could barely breathe.

It was Rafe that had brought him out of it, cursing softly before he’d suggested,

_“Danny, let’s play some chicken with these Jap suckers.”_

Chicken.

A stunt they had been pulling off successfully since they’d been teenagers.

_“Alright. I’m with you.”_

Yes, he was.

It had taken him a moment to find Rafe in the distance, his vision playing tricks on him until he was finally able to confidently indenting the only other American airplane in the vicinity.

He’d altered his course accordingly, the continuing hail of bullets confirming that his friends had followed him and were still determined to do everything they could to bring him down.

_“I’m comin’ right at you, Rafe.”_

_“Don’t break till I tell you,” _Rafe had called out as they’d begun to hurtle towards each other at the top speed that their respective aircrafts possessed. His nerves had still been higher than ever before but this familiar action, the predictable outcome for the two of them, had helped ground him back into the moment. _“Hold on...”_ Rafe had urged. _“Not yet…not yet!”_

_“Come on!” _he’d muttered to himself, anxious to turn. _“Come on!”_

What the people on the ground had thought he would never know.

_“Go left, now!”_

He’d obeyed, barely missing the corner of the building he’d been flying beside, but it had been worth it. Both of the planes following him had crashed into two of those of Rafe’s tail.

_“Whoo!” _Rafe had laughed triumphantly. _“We got ‘em!”_

Danny’s own laugh in response had been significantly more wrecked sounding.

Relief had flooded through his veins as he’d turned to head back towards Rafe who still had one enemy plane left to deal with, intent on shooting it down. Earl had beaten him to it,

_“Okay, we’re at the top of the tower.”_

_“Earl, I got one on my tail. I’m gonna bring him right by you.”_

Danny had still been trying to catch up when Rafe had begun his run on the tower.

_“You better be cocked and locked when I come by there.”_

He’d watched as the plane following Rafe had been struck again and again before one lucky bullet shattered the canopy, no doubt striking the pilot, and the plane went into a free fall.

It had struck the roof of the building Danny had barely cleared during his take-off.

_“Good shootin’, boys!” _Rafe had praised their friends. _“Nice job, Earl.”_

Of course that had only been the beginning of their continuation to the defence of Pearl Harbour that day, the two of them turning their planes towards the terrifying explosions.

_“Now let’s head over to Battleship Row.”_

_“I’m with you.”_

The sight that met them there was like something out of a nightmare.

It still featured heavily in Danny’s worst dreams.

The scale of the destruction was almost too immense to be believed; almost every ship had been hit by that point in the battle, some worse than others. A couple of ships were visibly listing, one had capsized so that’s it’s underbelly was exposed and another was underwater. And the water, turned red with blood in places, was alive with men struggling to stay afloat.

He’d shot down his first enemy aircraft then, sending it plunging down into the water.

No longer alone in the skies their enemy had fled into the clouds.

He and Rafe had followed.

He was brought out of his memories by the familiar voice of his young navigator.

“Sir? It’s time for the first course alteration.”

“Ok, let me have it, Davis.”

They made their course correction smoothly, the other three planes in their group doing the same, and then they were back to the waiting game only this time his crew felt like talking.

“That your girl, Sir?”

Danny glanced at the photograph his navigator was referring to, smiling softly.

It was of the three of them, Rafe, Evelyn and himself, and had been taken on the night of the dance before they’d been split up. In it Rafe was smiling at Evelyn who was on his left whilst Danny, on his right, smiled at his best friend. Only Evelyn was looking towards the camera. It had been taken by a young woman selling the photographs at the party and all three of them had ended up purchasing a copy. However due to the fact that he had been forced to tuck it into a panel so as to secure it only Rafe and Evelyn we’re currently visible.

“No, she’s Rafe’s girl,” he answered softly, pointing to the other figure visible in the photo. “He’s my best friend, we grew up together, learnt to fly together so now…now she is too…”

He didn’t miss the look of sympathy that was shot his way.

His navigator had assumed, correctly, that he was in love so his best friend’s girl.

Thankfully he had no way of knowing that there was more to it than that.

“…maybe she’s got a friend?”

“Yeah, maybe…” 

Unbidden his mind supplied an image of Evelyn’s fellow nurses and friends as they had been the night that the photo had been taken, each of them dressed in their finest for the dance.

He had spent most of the night sat at the table they’d commandeered with Sandra, the two of them barely speaking to each other. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her, quite the opposite; she was a lovely young woman, pretty despite the round spectacles she was forced to wear with her dark brown hair styled in tight curls around her face and her slim body clad in red velvet. She was smart, too, with a dry wit but his attention had remained fixated on Rafe as he had spent the night dancing with Evelyn, talking with Evelyn and drinking with Evelyn.

Barbara, on the other hand, he hadn’t spent much time with.

She was different to the rest of the girls, more wild and had obviously been something of a game girl judging by the fact that she had disappeared with Billy and the next time any of them had seen him he had lost his tie, his slacks were wrinkled and he couldn’t stop smiling.

He remembered that she’d been dressed in black, a unusual choice, with a vivid red flower pinned just below her left shoulder and her blonde hair had been style like Rita Hayworth.

Though his first impressions of her hadn’t been particularly favourable he knew now that in spite of her free-spirit she was a kind-hearted soul who cared deeply for her closest friends.

He’d only danced once that night, Martha having literally dragged him up out of his seat.

Her floral dress had flattered her slightly fuller figure perfectly, hugging her curves in all the right places, and her long dark hair had been left straight and loose. Of all his memories of that night it was her hair that stood out; he remembered being whipped in the face by the long brown locks every time she’d spun in his arms as she all but led him through the dance.

And then there’d been Betty.

Poor, sweet, innocent Betty…

She’d been the picture of youth that night at the dance in her dress made of yellow chiffon, her long blonde curls hanging freely about her slim shoulders. Red had fallen for her before their eyes, stuttering his way through their introduction and Betty, the darling girl, hadn’t tried to hurry him or brush him off. No, she’d waited for him to form every word with a soft smile, eventually agreeing to dance with him. They’d spent the rest of the evening together.

It hurt to think of the fact that he’d never see her beautiful smile again.

Poor Betty had been killed before she’d even made it to the hospital.

It had been difficult enough for them to pay their respects to Billy at the memorial service, to see his coffin draped with their beloved stars and stripes amidst thousands of others.

It had been harder still for them to say goodbye to Betty, her face smiling up at them from the portrait someone had placed on her coffin. Poor Red had broken down, pressing a kiss to the flag covering his fiancés coffin before collapsing to his knees in heart-wrenching tears.

And yet the conversation afterwards had, in some ways, been the hardest thing of all.

_“Rafe, please, we need to talk…”_

_“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”_

Evelyn had caught hold of his hand as tightly as she could without drawing too much attention and, mercifully, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Her other hand had discretely grabbed hold of Danny’s wrist, allowing her to lead both of them through a nearby door.

It had led into a small supply cupboard and she’d blocked the door with her body.

_“We need to talk.”_

_“Evelyn, I really don’t think this is the time…”_

_“No, Rafe, this is the time. Loosing Betty…and Billy…we have to sort things out between us.”_

_“I don’t see how we can…”_

_“I love you, Rafe, and I love Danny.”_

She had said it so simply, putting no more emphasis on one statement than the other.

And then she had looked at him, meeting his gaze with an obvious question in her eyes.

Panic had flooded through his veins.

No…

_She couldn’t mean to…_

_“Danny…”_

_“No,” _he’d gasped, shaking his head frantically. _“Evelyn, you can’t…”_

He’d been so certain that Rafe would never speak to him again if he ever found out.

That his whole life would come tumbling down.

It hadn’t.

_“Danny loves you.”_

_“That’s not the same…”_

_“No, Rafe, it is the same.”_

Danny’s breath had lodged in his throat.

No…

_“Danny loves you the same way I do.”_

_“What do you…?”_

Rafe had been so confused.

His eyes had flickered back and forth between the two of them.

_“Danny loves me the same way I love him.” _

Danny had been close to tears when realisation had dawned in his friends eyes.

_“You mean…”_

_“And I think that you love him too.”_

_“Of course I love him,” _Rafe had responded instinctively. _“But not like I love you…”_

_“No, that’s probably true but I think you could.”_

Danny couldn’t speak.

_“I think that the three of us were destined to meet…”_

_“Evelyn…”_

_“I think the three of us were destined to fall in love…”_

She had stepped between them then, taking their hands once more and bringing them up to her lips, pressing kisses to their knuckles as her gaze flickered back and forth between them.

_“We belong together.”_

_“You can’t mean…”_

Danny had had no choice then but to speak up then, his voice trembling, his eyes wet,

_“I’m sorry, Rafe. I’m so sorry. I never meant to feel this way. It just…happened…”_

_“…you love me, Danny? Like…like a man loves a woman?”_

_“Yes,” _his confirmation caused his tears to spill over, the sight of them drawing a noise of concern from Evelyn’s lips. _“I don’t know why, I just do. I always have. I think I always will.”_

_“But, Danny, that’s not…”_

_“I know, Rafe, I know it’s not normal,” _Danny had hurriedly to interject, wiping away the tears flooding down his cheeks. It did nothing to stem to flow now that he’d allowed them to fall. “_I know it’s not how things are supposed to be but I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Same way I love Evelyn. But I know that nothing can come of it.”_

He’d tried to pull his hand out of Evelyn’s but she’d proven to have an unusually strong grip.

_“I know it’s wrong, Rafe, that’s why I never told you.”_

_“Danny, I don’t know what to say…”_

_“You don’t have to say anything, Rafe. I know you could never feel the same way, no matter what Evelyn thinks. I just hope…I hope you can forgive me and that you won’t…” _he’d had to pause then, breathing sharply through his nose as he fought to keep what little composure he had left. _“…that you won’t stop me from fighting alongside you. I promised myself years ago that I’d always be there for you, that I’d always protect you because of how I loved you.”_

A sob had escaped him then, loud and uncontrollable.

_“Please, I promise I won’t…I won’t do anything to…to…I promise…I just need to…”_

_“Danny,” _Rafe had interrupted him firmly. _“You need to breathe…”_

_“I can’t…you…I’m sorry…please, don’t hate me…”_

Arms had surrounded him, strong and secure, pulling him forwards until his face ended up pressed into the curve of Rafe’s throat. He’d hidden his face there, stunned at the intimacy being offered to him, until he’d felt a smaller body press against his side, an arm wrapping around his waist as a head pressed into the curve of his own neck. Evelyn. Her other arm had been wrapped around Rafe’s waist, prompting him to alter his grip to include her too.

They’d fit so perfectly together.

_“I don’t understand, Danny. I don’t know that I ever will.”_

His heart had thundered in his chest even as Rafe had continued to hold him close.

_“But I could never hate you…”_

Danny had never wanted to leave their embrace.

Unfortunately they couldn’t stay in that storage room for the rest of their lives.

_“Why don’t we head back to mine?” _Evelyn had suggested when she had finally pulled away from the two of them. _“We need to finish this conversation but…not here…it’s not…right…”_

They’d agreed with her suggestion.

They’d never made it to her house, however, due to an unfamiliar voice calling out to them,

_“Lieutenants Rafe McCawley, Daniel Walker?”_

Upon seeing the owner of the voice, an unfamiliar superior officer, they’d both saluted.

_“Major.”_

_“You’re both going stateside. Fly out in two hours.”_

_“What for, Sir?”_

_“Ask Colonel Doolittle.”_

_“Yes, Sir.” _

And just like that they’d been reassigned to this borderline suicidal attack on Tokyo.

Danny hadn’t seen Evelyn again before their flight off of Oahu.

He wished he’d had the chance to say goodbye but that wasn’t to be.

Rafe had spoken to her at least as they waited to board their flight to the mainland whilst Danny had been helping one of the other men coming with them to stow everyone’s hastily packed kit in the plane, although exactly what they spoke of remained a mystery to Danny. 

“Sir, it’s time to split up.”

Acknowledging his navigators statement Danny spared Rafe’s plane one last look before easing back on the stick as he’d been briefed to, allowing the others to pull ahead. Once they were suitable spread out he took them up to wave-top level so as to avoid detection.

“Ok, boys, we’re on our own now,” he announced to his crew once he had settled back into his seat, all of the required adjustments complete. “Let’s make sure we get this right, okay?”

“Yes, Sir.”

~ * ~


	3. Chapter Two

** THERE YOU’LL BE ** **  
CHAPTER TWO**

As Danny gazed at the horizon ahead of them he found himself wondering how strange it was that despite all of them being volunteers for this seemingly impossible mission each member of his crew was reaching differently to their impending task. Goose, normally so outspoken and positive, hadn’t said a single word since they’d taken off almost six hours prior. Anthony, who had never been one to suffer from self-doubt before, kept running through his part of their mission over and over again. O’Connor, their young navigator hadn’t stopped talking and asking questions, usually about things that had nothing to do with the raid. And Davies, the oldest member of their crew and tail gunner who no longer had a gun, had spent the journey carving an intricate pattern into his painted broomstick.

And then there was Danny who, despite how much he tried, couldn’t stop his mind from running through the event of the past few days, weeks, months…hell, years and decades.

There was only one constant to his thoughts.

_Rafe._

His lips tingled as his mind brought his memory of the previous night to the forefront of his mind, prompting him to bring a gloved hand up to stroke his fingertips across his bottom lip.

It had been after their final briefing that Rafe had sought him out.

_“My friends in the war department don’t want me to lead this raid because they say I’m too valuable,” Colonel Doolittle addressed the pilots who had taken over the carriers briefing room for the evening, each of whom listened intently to their commander, picking up on his frustration easily enough. “They don’t want me up in the air flying with the men that I’ve chosen, that I’ve chewed out, cussed out, pushed to the limit and that I’ve come to respect.” _

_Danny felt sick, his stomach churning uncontrollably._

_“They want me to stand on the flight deck and wave you off,” Doolittle continued, ceasing his earlier pacing once he was back at the front of the room. “Well, I don’t see it that way.”_

_None of them were surprised._

_They knew how they would feel if it was them being told that they couldn’t do complete the mission they’d been training for simply because someone in a smart suit said they were too valuable. Doolittle was a pilot, same as them, and had been flying for a hell of a lot longer. _

_“So I’m going with you.”_

_Relief coursed through his veins as he glanced across at Rafe, looking past Red who was sat in the seat between them; his life long friend appeared equal parts relieved and concerned. _

_“We take off tomorrow afternoon, drop our fire and head for China,” Doolittle continued as succinctly as possible. “Our mission is to hit military targets, aircraft and tank factories.”_

_“Colonel, you’ve given us the homing beacons, but you’ve also told us that China is overrun with Japanese troops,” an unfamiliar voice from the row behind him piped up. There hadn’t been time to really get to know everyone. “What do we do if the beacons are switched off?”_

_“You bring her down any way you can and do your best to avoid capture.”_

_Anthony spoke up next, fiddling nervously with the signet ring he wore on his ring finger,_

_“What do we do if our planes are damaged and we have to bail out over Japan?”_

_He was glad someone had had the nerve to ask the question that had been on all of their minds since they’d first been told exactly what their targets were going to be; ten military and industrial targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama, and one each in Yokosuka, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. Danny and Rafe, much to their relief, would both be heading for Tokyo. There had been a moment where he’d thought they’d be assigned different targets, separating them during the raid, but Doolittle had wanted them to stay together, to stay with him. _

_“Well,” Doolittle sighed deeply. “In that situation, I can’t tell you what you should do.”_

_“What would you do, Colonel?”_

_Rafe sounded much calmer than Danny felt._

_He suspected that if he opened his mouth to speak just then nothing would come out._

_“I wasn’t built to be a prisoner,” their Colonel confessed at length, meeting Rafe’s gaze for a long moment before surveying the room. “So I would have my crew bail out , I’d find the sweetest military target I could and drive my plane right smack into the middle of it…”_

_Danny gut churned once more._

_Would he be able to do that if such a scenario came to pass?_

_Would he be brave enough to face death in such a way?_

_He honestly didn’t know and that…that terrified him…_

_“But that’s just me,” Doolittle went on, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m 45 years old, I’m an old man. You guys have your whole lives ahead of you. What you do in that situation is entirely up to you. Now, get some sleep, gentlemen; we’ve got a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”_

_“Yes, Sir.” _

_“Dismissed.”_

_Whilst most of the others had leapt up from their seats, eager to retire to their bunks for the night, Danny lingered in his seat. He feared that if he attempted to stand just then he would crumple into a pathetic heap, betraying his fears to the men he was to fly alongside in battle._

_“Danny?”_

_Rafe._

_“…you okay?”_

_He snorted loudly._

_“No,” he confessed before he could think better of it. Mercifully by then they were alone but for Red, Anthony and Goose who lingered in the open hatchway. “No, I don’t think I am…”_

_Rafe’s handsome face twisted in concern._

_“Guys, I’m gonna take Danny up to get some air,” he informed their friends a moment later, gesturing for them to leave the room with a nod of his head. “We shouldn’t be too long…”_

_“Ok-k-k-k-kay, Rafe,” Red responded with his signature stutter. “We’ll see you later.”_

_Once they were gone the older man hooked a hand under Danny’s arm and pulled. _

_“Come on, Danny.”_

_As it turned out fresh air did help calm his nerves, as did the fact that Rafe never let go of his arm until they’d crossed the deck to stand between where their planes were strapped down._

_“Danny…”_

_“I’m scared, Rafe,” Danny had blurted out before he could stop himself and once he’d started there had been stopping the words from tumbling out. “I’m scared we won’t be able to get the birds up in time. I’m scared the Japs will shoot us down before any of us even reach our targets. I’m scared that we’ll have to bail out or crash land over Japan or over the sea. I’m…”_

_Rafe had silenced him by pulling him into the tightest hug of his entire life._

_He’d clung to his friend equally as tight. _

_“It’s okay to be afraid, Danny; fear keeps you sharp, keeps you alive,” Rafe had murmured, his lips so close to the younger man’s ear that they’d brushed across his sensitive skin. “But you can’t let your fear overwhelm you, control you. If that happens your fear can kill you.”_

_“I’m afraid I’m going to lose you,” Danny had confessed, his voice little more than a whimper as he’d pressed his face into the side of his friends neck. “I’m afraid I’ve already lost you...”_

_“No, Danny, you could never lose me.”_

_“But…”_

_“Danny, I love you,” Rafe had announced simply, firmly, the words stunning Danny into silence as his body was manipulated so that their eyes could meet once more. “I’ve always loved you. You’re my brother, Danny; always have been, always will be. And…and I’ve been thinking about what you said, what Evelyn said and…and I don’t know why or how but…”_

_His heart had begun thumping harder in his chest with every word that his friend spoke._

_“Rafe, what are you trying to say?”_

_“I think she was right, Danny. I think Evelyn was right.”_

_“I don’t…”_

_The words had seemed to tumble out of Rafe after that whilst he pulled Danny over to his aircraft, tucking them into its side close to the tail fins to hide them from any prying eyes._

_“Danny, I can’t imagine my life without you or without her. When I think about my life after the war I see you there, I see Evelyn there. I see us all eating dinner together around my folks kitchen table. I see us going to the pictures together. I see us walking through the fields hand in hand, not just me and Evelyn but all of us, holding hands. I…I see the three of us in bed…”_

_“Rafe…”_

_“Just sleeping but…but maybe more…I don’t know…” Rafe had all but grunted out, his grip on Danny arms tightening to an almost painful level. “I’ve never thought of you as anything more than my brother until I found out…until Evelyn said…until you…and now I can’t stop…”_

_A growl, one of pure frustration, and then Danny had felt lips against his own._

_“I don’t know what to think,” Rafe had panted against his lips, barely pulling back an inch so that his words ghosted over Danny’s tingling lips. “I’m…I’m gonna need you to explain a few things to me later on, Danny, but I know how I feel. I need you. I need Evelyn. I need us.” _

_“I need you too, Rafe,” Danny had gasped, his mind a whirlpool of thoughts as he was presented with the chance of having everything he had ever wanted. “I need Evelyn.”_

_A smile, hopeful and longing, passed between them as he’d repeated Rafe’s final words,_

_“I need us.” _

_“Us.”_

_“Well then, Daniel Walker, that means that we’re going to do everything in our power to survive this mission so that we can get home to our girl and figure out how this all works.”_

There had been a second kiss, a little longer than the first, a little less surprising that neither of them had been able to resist following Rafe’s realisation and confession and then they’d been forced to part, heading inside. Rafe had gone off to grab a cup of coffee before bed, something that Danny could never do as it woke him up too much, whilst the younger man had penned a letter to Evelyn _just in case_; it had covered his feelings for her, his feelings for Rafe but done in such a way that censor checking his mail wouldn’t suspect anything more than brotherly love, his hopes for their future, the fact that he and Rafe had talked and had managed to sort a few things out before finishing up with his apologies if he was forced to give his life in order to ensure that this mission was successful and a request that should he fail to return to her that she was to do her best to move on and live her life to the fullest.

He’d added it to the pile to be posted once the ship returned to port.

The radio crackled to life suddenly, breaking the silence they had been flying in for so long,

“That’s Japan right there, fellas.”

Doolittle sounded so calm over the radio, reassuringly so, and Danny could spot his plane up ahead. There were other planes appearing all around theirs, dropping out of the clouds just like they had moments before and he knew that one of them somewhere was Rafe’s, he just didn’t know which one. As they all settled into a simple formation Danny found himself guiding his plane into position to the right and slightly behind the leader right at the front.

In this position they would be one of the first to drop their bombs during the attack.

Whether or not this was a good thing had yet to be seen…

“Tighten up back there.”

His own positioning was as tight as it was going to get so he ignored that command.

“Man your guns!”

That, however, he could get behind.

“Okay, boys, get those guns primed and ready to fire,” he called out to his crew, nodding to Goose as his friend disappeared from his seat, crawling down the small gap to the nose gun. Their young navigator disappeared too, moving to get the remaining waist gun ready to fire. “Keep your eyes peeled for enemy fights; call out if you see any. Anthony, we good to go?”

“Yeah, you betcha…”

His friend’s words were confident; his tone of voice was not.

Danny decided not to question him just then.

“We’re in the enemy’s back yard.”

Yes, they were, and Danny sure as hell wished they still possessed all of their guns. 

_“What’s your favourite gun?”_

_“…what?”_

Danny had understood his crew’s confusion.

Lieutenant Richards, the guy from Navy Aviation who’d helped them lighten their planes during their initial training, had appeared out of nowhere as they’d been frantically adding cans of fuel to their plane during their pre-flight checks and opened with that odd question.

_“You wanna get off this deck, you give me one of those guns now. It’s still too heavy.”_

It had been the fuel, Danny realised now, the additional fuel they’d been forced to add due to the fact that they had been forced to up their take-off and had been leaving the carrier earlier than they’d anticipated and were therefore further away from Japan than was ideal.

They’d needed to lose something to account for the weight of the fuel.

It had been his idea to replace the missing guns with broomsticks.

_“Hey! I want you to go to the kitchen, get some broomsticks. Cut ‘em down, paint ‘em black and bring ‘em here,” he’d ordered one of the sailors helping them to load the heavy cans, the young man obeying without question. “You’re gonna put a broomstick where this gun was.” _

_“A broomstick?!” _

_“Yes, a broomstick. Trust me; you’ll be fine.”_

Easy for him to say.

He wasn’t the one now flying over the coast of Japan with only one waist gun, the turret gun and the nose gun to defend themselves with; if an enemy fighter snuck up behind them or below them on the starboard side they’d be unable to do anything but pray for a miracle. 

Danny was definitely as unenthusiastic about the idea as he had been when it’d happened,

_“We’ve got broomsticks for tail guns!” _

_“Yeah,” _Rafe had sighed deeply_. “Maybe it’ll scare ‘em.” _

He’d wanted to throw his arms around his friend, to hold him tight and never let go.

He hadn’t.

He’d shaken his hand, all the while staring at his lips as he remembered their kisses.

_“You take care of yourself up there.”_

_“Yeah, I will,”_ Rafe had responded, his eyes filled with worry as their hands had clutched at each other’s for slightly longer than was appropriate. “_Danny, be careful, you hear me?” _

_“I will. I’ll see you, Rafe.” _

The radio crackled once more before Doolittle’s voice, now slightly agitated, sounded,

“Heads up, boys, heads up!”

This was it.

Oh, God…

“Get ready, you suckers.”

Who was that?

He couldn’t tell…

His hands shook as he followed the lead planes flight path.

His navigator called out something, probably reassuring him that there were on target.

In that moment he could have said anything at all and Danny wouldn’t have noticed.

“Approaching targets for bombing raid.”

His lungs seized as he heard Colonel Doolittle’s announcement over the radio.

It was followed shortly by,

“Open bomb bay doors.”

His heart began to thunder inside his chest.

“Open bomb bay doors.”

Flipping the required switch Danny listened to the metal groaning as the bomb bay doors opened below them, exposing the ordnance they carried so that it could drop when ready.

“Anthony?” he found himself calling out. “How are we doing?”

“We’re doing good, Danny, doing good…” Anthony responded somewhat tightly from where he’d joined Goose in the planes nose, gazing down through the bombsight. “Target in sight!”

“Oh, God…”

Whether or not anyone heard the utterance that escaped him Danny would never know as at just that moment Doolittle’s voice came blasting through the radio louder than before,

“Drop your ordnance!”

Despite the fear still causing his lungs to spasm uncontrollably Danny didn’t even hesitate to give the required command as clearly as he could, both to his crew and through the radio,

“Bombs away!”

There was a clicking noise from deep within the plane and then Anthony was calling out,

“One away!”

Rafe’s voice, familiar and reassuring, came over the radio next as he called out,

“Bombs away! Bombs away!” 

“Two away!” Anthony called out, drowning out the last bit of Rafe’s order, Seconds after a second clicking noise had sounded. A third and fourth followed. “Three away! Four away!”

That was it.

They’d dropped all of their bombs.

Danny couldn’t stop himself from pulling open the window to his left and leaning his head out, glancing below just in time to see the corner of a factory get torn open by an explosion.

The sight of the red, orange and yellow flames and the black smoke hitch emanated from them brought back a series of unpleasant memories from the attack on Pearl Harbour, as did the sight of men no bigger than an ant at this distance running desperately for cover.

His radio crackled with Doolittle’s relieved voice,

“We caught ‘em by surprise.”

Yes, they had, although some of the bombs were a little off target as Danny had been; clipping the ends of buildings and exploding rather than destroying the building entirely.

The raid was successful, nonetheless, and now it was time to head for home.

Or rather, the relative safety of their allies in China.

Occupied China.

“We got our targets,” Doolittle continued. “Good job, raiders.”

Of course it was then, just as they all let out sighs of relief, that the Japanese opened fire.

Danny fought to keep the plane steady as they were hit by multiple pieces of flak, holes appearing all along the fuselage and most worryingly along their right wing and the tail.

Thankfully the bomb bay doors closed fully when he flipped the switch back to its original position, returning the plane to its more aerodynamic shape and giving him better control.

“We got flak everywhere!”

He barely registered Rafe’s sharp voice coming through the radio, too focused on keeping his plane airborne and his crew safe. Anthony had already crawled back out of the nose, his handsome face paler than Danny had ever seen it, and was manning the waist gun. Another hit almost tore the joystick out of his hands, prompting him to turn to O’Conner who stood looking lost having been mani the waist gun until Anthony had shoved him out of the way.

“O’Conner!” Danny called out to him. “Go down there and relieve Goose!”

“Yes, Sir!”

The radio crackled around Doolittle’s voice as he called out his latest order,

“I want everyone to separate!”

Easier said than done, given the circumstances.

A pain filled yelp escaped him when he felt something slice along his cheek, the ping of metal striking metal somewhere behind him letting him know that a piece of flak must have come in through the open window beside him and missing his head by mere millimetres.

He brought a shaking hand up to check on the state of his cheek, finding blood on the tips of his gloves fingers when he brought them away from his cheek. A cold shiver ran down the length of his spine as he realised how close he had just come to not making it home alive.

“Hey,” Goose grunted as he dropped down into the co-pilots seat. “You hit?”

“S’just a scratch,” he responded dazedly, using the side of his thumb to wipe away the worst of the blood running freely down his cheek. “We gotta try and get out of this shit, Goose!”

“Okie dokie, then.”

“Help me pull her up into the…”

“We got a fire!” Anthony called out, his voice filled with panic as the latest piece of flak passed through the fuselage, clipping some wires. “We got a fire! It’s an electric fire…”

Danny glanced back over his shoulder, eyes going wide at the sight.

Was that their radio?

Had they lost their radio?

“We got a fire back here!” Anthony reiterated in his panic, grabbing the fire extinguisher by his feet and aiming the small stream of water directly at the fire. “I’m gonna sort this out.”

Was it a good idea to put water on an electrical fire?

Surely that would make it worse…

“It’s not working!”

Yup, the water had made it worse.

“Use your hands!”

“What?!” Anthony screamed in response to Goose’s suggestion. “I can’t…”

“Smother it with your gloves!”

Danny was too focused on flying the plane to notice if Anthony did as he was ordered.

The radio crackled to life, the sound significantly worse than it had been before.

“Get into the clouds, Danny,” Rafe ordered him. “Right now! Get up…”

Another burst of flak caused the entire plane to shake as O’Conner called out frantically,

“I’m getting peppered up here!”

“Just hope they don’t hit a prop…”

Another burst of flak and then Danny heard two words he’d hoped never to hear,

“I’m hit!”

It was O’Conner down in the nose of the plane.

He sounded so frightened.

Danny grunted, struggling to pull the plane up even with Goose’s help,

“They’re gonna year this plane apart…”

“We gotta take it up,” Rafe’s voice crackled weakly over the radio. “800 feet.”

Danny found himself nodding in agreement even though Rafe couldn’t possibly see him.

“Get into the clouds, Danny, right now,” Rafe continued frantically. “Get up in that soup!”

“Alright, were gonna pull out of this, Goose,” Danny grunted, desperately trying to drag the now badly damaged nose of the plane up. Beside him Goose did the same. “Come on...”

It was a miracle that none of them were shot down as they fled their target areas, especially as some of them found themselves targeted by a handful of enemy fighters, as well as the fact that none of them were attacked directly from behind; they could only assume that the broomsticks masquerading as tail guns were as effective as they’d been promised. Danny’s plane wasn’t the only one to suffer damage before they could pull up into the safety of the clouds although it was equally miraculous that none of them lost an engine or a propeller.

“Anthony, get down there and help O’Conner,” Danny ordered once they were flying over what appeared to be a village surrounded by luscious green fields, not a single soldier or a gun in sight. His friend nodded, scrambling down towards the nose. “Anthony? How is he?”

“…not good…”

Danny sighed.

Without their navigator to guide them they’d have no choice but to stay close to another plane, putting them both at risk should they come under attack on their way to China, and with their radio potentially damaged they wouldn’t be able to make contact with anyone.

“Rafe?” he called out into his radio. “Rafe, we’ve lost our navigator.”

“Ok, Danny, then you stay on my tail,” Rafe responded instantly. “We’ll do this together.”

Some of the panic eased inside of him following his friend’s reassurance.

He could do this.

They could do this.

Together.

They proceeded southwest off of the south-eastern coast of Japan, just as they had been instructed to, and across the East China Sea towards eastern China. According to the plan several fields in the Zhejiang province were going to be rigged so as to guide them in using homing beacons. They would then be recovered and revealed by members of the Chinese resistance so that they could continue on to Chongqing, the wartime Kuomintang capital.

“I could use some help getting O’Conner out of the nose!”

“Goose, go help Anthony.”

His friend didn’t hesitate to obey, patting Davies on the leg as he squeezed past the oldest member of their crew who’d abandoned his broomstick in favour of manning the turret gun.

As they flew on towards their secondary target destination the weather began to rapidly deteriorate, making it a little bit more interesting than any of the pilots would have liked.

“All ocean, no land,” Danny muttered, checking the device mounted to the fuselage beside him which was meant to pick up the signal from the homing beacon. “Homing into nothing.”

“Even if we make it to the coast I don’t think we’re going to have enough fuel to reach our intended destination,” Anthony reported from behind him, holding up a single can of fuel. “Given that this is our last can of fuel; the rest have already been emptied. We’re screwed.”

“We’re not screwed,” Danny growled. “It just means that we might have to get creative…”

Creative.

Such a polite way of saying they were going to have to crash or possibly even bail out.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Colonel Doolittle’s voice crackled over the radio suddenly, breaking the radio silence they’d been flying under. It surprised them all to hear the words so clearly, given that Anthony had literally used a wad of chewing gum in attempt to repair some of the damage done to the circuitry. Nothing could be done about the damage from the fire, however, nor the fact that most of the dials had been broken off. “You’re all brave souls, amongst the bravest that I’ve ever had the privilege of flying with. But we’re on our own.”

Danny had to take a deep breath following their commanding officers statement.

His hand shook as he reached out to pull the photograph free, bringing it close so that he could see all three of their faces clearly, tracing a fingertip across first Evelyn, then Rafe.

He wasn’t going to give up hope.

He couldn’t. 

Not when everything he could ever want was so nearly within his grasp.

Night was rapidly approaching, the sun sinking down into the horizon, and they had already put their last can of fuel into the engines. Were it not for the tail wind they’d caught as they came off their targets, which increased their ground speed by twenty-nine miles-per-hour for seven hours, they probably never would have made it to China at all. As it was the longer that they went without sighting land the more serious they became about the possibility of having to ditch, even going so far as to preparing O’Conner’s unconscious body for the jump.

Danny was just beginning to give up on what little hope he had left when Rafe called out,

“I see the coast!”

And there it was, appearing beneath the clouds they were flying over like a mirage.

It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

“Copy that, Rafe,” he responded, his voice thick with relief. “We’re gonna make it.”

“Danny, follow me now,” Rafe ordered. “We can make this. I can see the coast right now.”

The plane ahead of him began to dip into the clouds, prompting him to follow suite.

“It’s only a few miles out,” Rafe continued reassuringly. “Follow me.”

“We’re following you, Rafe,” Danny called out. “We gotta fins a soft landing spot.”

There was some muffled talking over the radio, Rafe talking to his crew and then,

“I see rice paddies right there. We’ll bring it in right here.”

“Oh, God, engine ones dead,” that was Red, his distinctive stutter completely absent for once as he confirmed that Rafe’s plane was as low on fuel as theirs was, more so as they still had both engines working for the time being. “We’re gonna loose engine two any second.”

“We can make it in. Easy. Pull it back,” Rafe ordered tightly. “We’ll glide in, go in on fumes.”

Beside him Goose’s brow furrowed deeply,

“Can you even glide in one of these?”

“I guess we’ll find out…”

The two planes began to make their descent, heading towards the open fields, when…

“Japs!”

Rafe sounded utterly terrified as he screamed through the intermittent radio.

“We got Jap patrols all over the place! There’s Japs everywhere!”

That much further behind them Danny and his crew couldn’t see the soldiers that Rafe was talking about but they didn’t doubt him, not when his voice cracked from his level of fear.

“Danny, land somewhere else!”

“Rafe…”

Danny was reluctant to abandon his friend but his common sense won out, forcing his hands to move before he had even made a firm decision to pull his plane out of the gentle decent.

“We can’t just…”

“Strap yourself in, boys! We’re coming in hard!”

Rafe’s desperate voice cut off whatever Anthony was going to say just then.

“We’re a dead stick…”

His knuckles strained from the way he was clutching desperately at the joystick, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he brought his plane around so that they could see Rafe’s.

“Hold on, boys! We’re going down! Watch the trees!”

They struck the ground with an almighty crash, flames shooting up and bits of metal flying off of the plane as it gouged a furrow out of the previously pristine ground of the rice paddy.

“They’re down…”

“Shit!” Anthony cried out sharply. “Look!”

It took Danny a moment too long to realise what Anthony had been drawing their attention to and in that time it was already too late; the Japanese had entered the rice paddy and had opened fire on the crew as they climbed out of the wreckage that was once their plane. He could see Rafe, taking charge and urging his crew to take cover as best they could but from their vantage point Danny and his friends could clearly see that they were outnumbered.

“We can’t just leave them!”

No.

No, they couldn’t.

Gritting his teeth Danny brought the plane around and lined them up with their targets.

“Hold onto something…”

Putting them into a dive which was far too steep to be deemed safe for a manoeuvre that would probably end in a crash landing he waited until he was certain that he wouldn’t hit any of their countrymen before squeezing the trigger and opening fire with the twin guns.

He had barely any time to celebrate the bullets finding their intended targets, the ground surging up towards them so suddenly that he could do nothing but close his eyes and pray…

~ * ~


	4. Chapter Three

** THERE YOU’LL BE  
** **CHAPTER THREE**

Standing with the other family members waiting for the planes to land Evelyn Johnson, formerly of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, pressed a hand over the distinct swell of her stomach. Her pregnancy and the fact that she was unmarried had brought her nursing career to an abrupt end when she could no longer hide her condition. She hadn’t been surprised; in fact her greatest surprise was how long she’d gotten away with hiding it for.

Her parents had been horrified when she’d written to them to inform them of her condition.

They’d written back immediately demanding that she get married before news of her shame reached their neighbours and that if she refused to do so then she was no longer their child.

She had cried for hours after receiving that letter.

Only the arrival of the telegram she clutched in her other hand had brought her out of her despair; **We’re okay. Danny injured. Flight home delayed until he’s better. Love Rafe. **

They were alive.

Her boys, as she’d come to think of them, were _alive_.

Hearing that Danny was injured concerned her but Rafe would have said if it was serious.

That has been over a month ago, at which point she’d gone to a pawn shop near the room she was renting with her meagre savings and bought herself a simple engagement ring. It changed people’s attitudes towards her; she could now say that the reason she was married to her child’s father was because he had been called upon to take part in the Doolittle Raid.

People actually congratulated her after they heard that.

She was still unsure of how it would work out, which one of her boys she would end up marrying. If she could she would gladly have married them both, her feelings for them having grown in their absence to the point where she could think of one without the other.

The sound of an approaching plane drew her eyes to the sky.

This was it.

She’d been informed via another telegram that Rafe and Danny would be coming home today, arriving at an unknown time but definitely at this particular airbase. She’d taken three different buses in order to be there to welcome them home and had dressed herself in her most recently purchased dress; black with a pattern of white ribbons fluttering as though they were caught in a breeze all over it. The fact that it was made of Rayon Crepe De Chine had been her main reason for spending her money on the dress as the fabric was nice and stretchy, hugging the swell of her stomach without straining at the seams. The shoes she’d paired with the dress were her most comfortable pair of black heels whilst her little bolero jacket, hat and gloves were a crisp white to match the pattern on the dress. They hadn’t lasted long in the heat, however, and even her hat was resting on the ground beside her handbag. Her hair was pinned up at the front but otherwise hung loose in gentle waves.

Her hand left her stomach to shield her eyes from the sun glinting off the gleaming metal fuselage of the plane as it came in to land, bouncing a few times before rolling to a stop.

Another plane landed behind it.

Then another.

Which one would they be on?

Her feet carried her forwards before she made the conscious decision to move, several other women doing the same much to the approval of the news cameras set up to capture the touching reunions on film. The hatch of the first plane opened, dropping to become steps, and she found herself holding her breath as she waited to see who would step out.

The first few men she didn’t recognise.

Other women did, calling out their names and running over to them.

And then suddenly there was a face she recognised.

“Rafe…”

He hesitated in the doorway when he caught sight of her, exposed as she was, before turning back to offer his arm to the figure lurking behind him. When they stepped out, moving in tandem down the steps, she couldn’t hold back her gasp of shock at the sight.

“Danny…”

It was obvious that he was unsteady on his feet, relying on Rafe to help him.

The reason why was equally as obvious.

The injuries that Rafe had warned her so briefly of were more severe than she’d expected.

Danny’s left arm was…gone…

Her hand moved to cover her mouth in an open display of her shock.

Danny…

Her poor Danny had been…

And then they were directly in front of her.

“Evelyn…”

They spoke as one, the longing and relief in their voices absolutely identical.

Tears spilled out of her eyes, flooding down her cheeks as she sucked in a shuddering breath before throwing her arms around both of them, her stomach coming to rest between theirs.

President Roosevelt himself could have arrived then and none of them would have noticed.

Evelyn couldn’t stop crying, her hands clutching desperately at their shoulders whilst they held her back as tightly as they could, burying their equally tearful faces in her luscious hair.

How long they stood there none of them would ever know.

Eventually, though, Evelyn pulled away from them and wipe at her cheeks as she suggested,

“Perhaps we should find somewhere more private where we can talk properly?”

Seemingly unable to speak both of the men before her nodded, each of them wiping at their own cheeks to remove the last traces of their own tears, and followed her over to her pile of belongings. Rafe immediately stooped down to pick them up for her, allowing Evelyn to take his place tucked into Danny’s side to offer support when he lost his balance. Then, moving together, they left in search of somewhere private and found a small patch of neatly mown grass between two buildings that was definitely off the beaten path which would suit them.

“Shall we sit down?”

“Yes, but before we do…” Evelyn gasped out in response to Rafe’s suggestion, turning to press her lips first to Danny’s in a truly desperate kiss and then to Rafe’s. “Now we can sit.”

“I’ll need help getting down,” Danny confessed once he’d recovered from the kiss, gesturing to where the sleeve was pinned up making his lack of arm all the more obvious. “Still not…”

“It’s ok, Danny,” Evelyn interrupted his apologetic explanation. “I’ll need help getting up.”

Her statement brought about startled chuckles from both of them.

“I could hardly believe it when Rafe told me,” Danny murmured breathlessly, reaching out until his hand hovered an inch away from her stomach as though he was afraid to touch. It was instinctive for her to take his hand and press it against her stomach before reaching out for one of Rafe’s, adding it to the mix. “I never thought I’d be a father. Is it…are you okay?”

“We’re fine,” Evelyn murmured as the three of them stood for a moment before helping each other to sit down on the warm glass as close together as they could possibly be with Evelyn tucked in between them. “Everything’s fine. But what about you? What happened?”

“I don’t know how much we should tell you…”

“I listened to some of it over the radio,” Evelyn confessed, interrupting Rafe’s hesitant response. They were understandably startled. “I got an officer who’s life I helped to save during the attack to sneak me into the typing pool so I would know what was going on…”

Rafe chuckled deeply,

“Of course you did…”

“How much did you hear?”

“Some of the raid itself,” she answered Danny question, her hands instinctively moving to return theirs to her stomach as the baby shifted within her. A look of wonder overtook their faces for a moment before they forced themselves to focus of her words. “But there wasn’t much of an opportunity to listen in after they began shooting at you as the door was shut.”

“Of course they did,” Rafe chuckled. “Can’t have just anyone listening in to our missions.”

“Like nosy Navy Nurses…”

“Well I’m not a nurse anymore so that doesn’t count,” Evelyn countered Danny’s teasing comment, noticing as their smirks fell from their faces, their gaze dropping to her stomach. “Although that would make me a nosy civilian and that could constitute spying to let’s not mention that, shall we? And, yes, before you get all upset I dod lose my job because of the baby but I don’t care; I can go back to work after its born if I want to as a civilian nurse.”

It was then that Rafe caught sight of the diamond ring on her left hand, asking thickly,

“So who’s the lucky fella?”

“One of you two, I hope,” she responded with a smile, bringing her hand up to show them the ring. It truly was simple, a single stone on a plain gold band, but she liked it nonetheless. “Or else I’ll be in even more trouble with my family and neighbours than I was before I started wearing this and telling them that the only reason I wasn’t married was because my fiancé was busy taking part in the important raid that was going to get back at our enemy.”

The two men shared a look over the top of her hand.

“Rafe,” Danny announced suddenly. “You should marry Rafe.”

“Danny…”

“I’m getting a medical discharge but he’ll still be flying,” Danny pressed on. “If you marry him then you have a right to know where he is and…and to be notified if something…if…”

“We can worry about that later, Danny,” Evelyn hurried to shush him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up so son. We’ve got more important things to discuss first. Like how you were injured and whether or not the two of you are okay and whether we’re together...”

It was Evelyn’s turn to be shushed as her breathing picked up noticeably.

“We’re okay,” Rafe reassured her firmly. “And…and Danny and me have talked a lot over the past couple of months and I think I’d like to see if this can work between us. I’d never thought something like what we could have might be possible but now that the opportunity is there I can’t stop thinking about it, picturing our future, and when Danny was injured I…”

“...will you tell me what happened?”

As she spoke Evelyn found her hand moving from where it had rested over Danny’s on her stomach to hover just above the empty sleeve, hesitant to touch in case he wasn’t ready.

“Because we launched early and were further away from our targets than we ought to have been we didn’t have enough fuel to make it as far inland as we intended once we’d reached China,” Rafe explained, obviously fighting to keep his voice as steady as possible even as all three of them became choked up at the sight of Danny’s missing limb, the stump ending an inch above where his elbow had previously been. His jacket sleeve, pinned up as it was, concealed the bandages which covered the stump and they in turn covered the unpleasant scarring... “To be honest I didn’t think we were even going to reach China for a while...”

“Me neither,” Danny sighed, his gaze locked on where her fingers were hovering by his arm. “But then we saw the coast and had just enough fuel to find somewhere suitable to land.”

“Only problem was there were Japanese soldiers everywhere,” Rafe continued, his words causing her to let out a gasp. “I waved Danny off, told him to land somewhere else but both my engines had cut out already so I had no choice but to land then and there. We came under heavy fire and, God, I thought I was done for. But then outta the sky comes Danny...”

“We couldn’t just leave you to be killed or captured, Rafe, not when we could do something about it.”

“But you could’ve been killed!”

Evelyn could feel the tension rising between the two of them and realised, quite suddenly, that they hadn’t spoken about what had happened before now.

“Rafe,” she murmured, giving the hand on her stomach a squeeze. “What happened?”

“They strafed the Japs just as they were about to overrun us but in doing so they crashed. Hard.”

“We couldn’t just abandon you. _I_ couldn’t just abandon you,” Danny insisted tearfully. “How could I look Evelyn in the eye if you’d been killed and I could’ve done something to save you? How could I look at myself in the mirror if I abandoned you to save my own skin?”

“Danny...”

“We knew the risks before we started our strafing run,” Danny insisted, his tears spilling over once more. “Anthony knew the risks. I knew the risks. If I had to go back and do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing, Rafe, I wouldn’t change a damned thing…”

Anthony.

She’s seen his name on the casualty list but hadn’t realised that he’s been in Danny’s crew.

“...what happened after you crashed?”

“Rafe pulled me out,” Danny answered her soft query, his watery eyes locking with those of the man they loved. “My arm was in pretty bad shape and I had something in my neck...”

Rafe reaches into his pocket and produced an alarmingly large piece of metal, twisted and blackened and deadly sharp. A frightened gasp escaped her; that had been in Danny’s _neck_?

“I wanted to pull it out but...”

“You should _never_ pull something like that out of a wound!” she found herself interrupting Rafe in alarm, her voice sharper than she’d intended. “It could be stopping the bleeding...”

“I know. That’s what the Chinese doctor who ended up treating Danny said. At the time I just wanted to help take some of his pain away,” Rafe confessed, returning the shrapnel to his pocket. “It was only more Japanese soldiers arriving that stopped me from taking it out.”

Evelyn’s heart began thundering in her chest.

They’d both come so close to not coming back to her...

“We patched Danny and the rest of his crew up as best we could in the woods after we fled the open ground,” Rafe continued, his own hand moving to line up with hers as it continued to hover inches away from Danny’s stump. “All of them were worse off than we were…”

“Harder landing, that’s all.”

“And eventually the Chinese resistance found us and got us somewhere safe. They found a doctor who, well, who cut Danny’s arm off to save his life. I had…I had to hold him down…”

Evelyn felt her stomach twist unbearably at the pain in his eyes.

“And then they hid us until the arrangements could be made to get us home.”

Danny shifted, pushing his arm up into both of their hands so that they had no choice but to carefully cradle the stump inside the thick fabric of his jacket, a sad smile on his tired face.

“Oh, Danny...”

“I’m okay,” he murmured softly for both of their benefit, using his remaining hand to pat theirs. “It’s going to be difficult, I now that, but I’m okay. I’m more worried about Rafe.”

“Me? Danny...”

“They’ll want you back in a plane as soon as possible,” Danny explained, guilt flooding his voice. “The Japanese aren’t going to back down and I won’t be there to watch your six.”

Arms moved, all three of them responding instinctively and wrapping each other up in as tight a hug as they could manage, bodies slotting together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

“I’ll be okay. How could I not be now I’ve got the two...the _three_ of you to come back to?”

His words drew their gaze down to her round stomach once more.

“So, what should we do now?”

“Well, one of you needs to make an honest woman of me,” Evelyn reminded them with a tearful smile, her words bringing forth chuckles from her two boys as they dropped their hands to her rounded stomach once more just as the child growing within her pushed its little arms and legs out, the strange feeling causing both men to gasp in unrestrained wonder. “And then I think we should see where life takes us. The three of us. Together.”

“Together...” Danny breathed. “I never...”

“Together,” Rafe reiterated. “Always.”

“_Always_.”

~*~


	5. Epilogue - Five Years Later

** THERE YOU’LL BE  
** **EPILOGUE – FIVE YEARS LATER **

“Catch me, Uncle Danny!”

Laughing Danny did as he was ordered, hooking his arm around his sons waist as the little boy launched himself off of the wing of the crop duster he’d been playing on, catching him with ease after years of practice doing so one handed. He had the same adventurous spirit as his father…_fathers_…and Evelyn had often bemoaned that they’d forever be patching up scraped knees and bruised elbows. They wouldn’t change a thing about him, however, as some days their sons permanent state of excitement, along with his contagious smile and laughter, were the only way of getting through to Rafe when he was trapped in his mind.

In the eighteen months since they had celebrated the end of the war with a tearful embrace things had changed for the unusual family, mostly after Rafe’s return from the prison camp.

Danny could still remember the look on Evelyn’s face when she’d received the telegram to inform her that her husband had been shot down somewhere over the Pacific and was MIA.

_“Not again…”_

The second telegram, the one confirming that Rafe was now a Prisoner of War and was being held by the Japanese, had arrived on what should have been a day of celebration; the second anniversary of Rafe and Evelyn’s wedding. They’d married the week before Rafe had been ordered to report back to duty, Danny’s medical discharge having also been pushed through by then, and had by then moved into the old McCawley homestead. Rafe’s parents had welcomed the newlyweds and their “friend” into their home with open arms, doting on Evelyn and besotted with the idea of finally becoming grandparents. They remembered who Danny was, of course, and understood why he couldn’t simply move into the empty home he’d inherited after his father’s death, his mother having been dead for years by then; there was no way he could do all of the maintenance the place desperately needed with one arm.

_“When I come back I’m gonna help Danny sort the place out,” _Rafe had explained to his parents, sticking to the story that they had all agreed to tell for the time being. _“You don’t mind him staying here until then, do you? I hate the thought of him struggling alone…”_

_“Of course Danny can stay with us, sweetheart,” _Rafe’s mother had agreed immediately, cupping her sons face with her hands. _“You just make sure you take care of yourself, okay?”_

The look of devastation on Evelyn’s face had been nothing compared to the look of fear on Mrs McCawley’s, to the way that Mr McCawley had gone completely silent for over a week.

Only their son, a few weeks off of his second birthday, was spared the grief and worry.

James, or Jamie as they tended to call him, hadn’t met his “father” until after the war having been born a couple of weeks after Rafe had returned to active status and had believed that Danny was his father for the longest time. Keeping the truth from him had been painful but necessary; Rafe’s parents were some of the kindest people Danny had ever met but even they wouldn’t have reacted favourably to the unorthodox relationship their son had chosen.

They’d tried not to picture what Rafe was going through but even their wildest imaginings, the ones that came upon them in the dead of night, were nothing compared to the truth.

Rafe had been returned to them a shell of the man he had once been.

His skin had been clinging to his bones, not an ounce of fat remaining on his body, and there were scars littering his once perfect skin that spoke of the torture he had suffered through.

He’d slept for three days straight, curled up in the bed he shared with Evelyn, whimpering like a frightened child as his dreams tormented him. When he’d finally woken and joined them downstairs he had refused to speak of what had been done to him; instead he had focused all of his attention on Jamie, his eyes following the little boy wherever he moved.

It had taken him almost six months to tell them a single thing about his time as a prisoner.

Even then it had only been because he’d thrown up in response to his mother making a meal that included rice, all control vanishing in response to seeing the meal on the table.

_“Please…I can’t…no rice…” _

He wouldn’t tell them why but they’d all agreed.

No rice.

He’d retreated into himself after the incident, sitting on the porch and staring at nothing.

In the end it had been Jamie who had brought him out of his funk.

_“…why doesn’t my daddy like me, Uncle Danny?”_

He’d asked the question whilst helping Danny to wash the farms crop duster, his voice filled with pain and confusion, easily carrying to where Rafe had been sat, as ever, on the porch.

_“…why do you think your daddy doesn’t like you?”_

_“He won’t play with me or talk to me or tuck me in at night,” _Jamie had answered simply, his big blue eyes so similar to Danny’s own he was amazed people had bought the story that he was Rafe’s son gazing tearfully up at him. _“Mummy said he would do all of that when he got home but he hasn’t. Did I do something wrong? Don’t I get to have my daddy play with me?”_

Even remembering that day made his heart feel heavy.

_“No, Jamie, that’s not…your daddy is just…sad…”_

_“Why?”_

Rafe’s voice had taken them both by surprise,

_“…because there was a bad man and he wouldn’t let me come home to see you.”_

It had been a severely simplified version of the truth.

But it had been enough for Jamie and it had been a starting point for Rafe.

That evening he had wept in Evelyn’s arms whilst Danny had perched on the edge of the bed, all three of them trying to be quiet to begin with so as not to disturb anyone else.

_“Please, Rafe, talk to us…”_

_“I don’t want you to know. I don’t…I don’t want you to be tainted by what happened…”_

_“But keeping it bottled up is not only hurting you it’s hurting all of us,” _Evelyn had murmured in his ear, rocking him gently as though her were a child. _“Listen, Rafe, you don’t have to tell us everything, not if you don’t want to, but we can’t help you if we don’t know what you’ve been through. I don’t…I don’t want to say or do something that hurts you, like with the rice.”_

It had taken Rafe a long few moments to respond.

_“I was the only one to survive the plane going down. I was on my own in a life raft for eight days before the Japanese finally picked me up. They interrogated me for days but even if I’d wanted to I couldn’t have told them anything they wanted to know; they were asking me for information that I never would’ve been able to have access to. I thought for sure they were going to kill me when they realised I was useless but I was sent to a camp outside Tokyo.” _

His body had been shaking so badly by then that Danny hadn’t hesitated to move, pressing himself to Rafe’s back and wrapping his arm around the two of them as best as he could.

_“I’ve heard what some of the other prisoners went through but to begin with it wasn’t so bad so long as you didn’t do anything to upset the officers in charge or the guards. They made us do manual labour but it kept us busy. The worst thing back then was the lack of real food…”_

_“The rice…”_

_“That was all they’d give us. Rice, sometimes filled with maggots.”_

The very thought had made Danny’s stomach churn unpleasantly.

_“We were there until the winter of ’45,” _Rafe continued, his voice taking on a hollow tone as his expression darkened._ “Then they moved us to another camp further inland. I never knew its name; we just called it Purgatory. This one…this one was worse. Men were killed to make an example to the rest of us, either for failing to complete the menial tasks assigned to them or for trying to escape; for every man that tried to escape ten more were killed. There were close to two thousands of us in the camp to begin with but when we were liberated there were…were less than a thousand. Some had been transferred away but most had been…”_

He hadn’t been able to say any more to them that night.

He hadn’t needed to.

Even now he would tell them something new every couple of weeks or so when the need to get it off of his chest overcame him and Danny wished that he could have spared Rafe some of the pain he had been put through at the hands of their enemy, physically and mentally.

They’d decided a year after Rafe’s return to explain the truth of their relationship to his parents who’d begun hinting about Rafe’s promise to help Danny do up his family’s farm.

It had been a difficult conversation but a necessary one.

Surprisingly his father had understood, murmuring something about the bonds formed during a war that could never be severed, although his mother struggled to understand.

_“I need them both, mama,” _Rafe had finally wept pathetically. _“I can’t do this without them.”_

She had come around to their unorthodox relationship eventually, mostly because of Evelyn and her way of explaining things to the older woman and the fact that they were content to keep it a secret from the rest of the world, to keep them all safe from the judgement of the people they called friends and neighbours. People were always willing to accept the excuse that Danny couldn’t physically cope on his own as his reason for living with the McCawley’s.

It was a good thing no one had ever seen him helping out on the farm; he’d grown quite adept at doing things with only one hand. He was by no means as helpless as they claimed.

Rafe was having something of a bad day that day, sitting on the porch watching them play.

It wasn’t a truly bad day as he was still interacting with them when they spoke to him.

“Boys!” Evelyn called out as she stepped out onto the porch, moving to rest her hand on Rafe’s shoulder. His hand drifted up to squeeze hers although his eyes never left where Danny was now spinning Jamie around, holding him tightly around his waist. “Dinner!”

“Mommy, look!” Jamie called back with a wild giggle. “I’m flying!”

“I can see that,” Evelyn chuckled fondly. “Maybe if you wash your hands and eat all of your vegetables without complaint Daddy might take you flying for real tomorrow if you ask…”

Jamie gasped loudly, wiggling so as to be let down.

As soon as his feet hit the ground the little boy was off running, skidding to a halt directly in front of Rafe and resting his hands on his “fathers” knees, leaning as far forward as he could.

“Will you really take me flying, daddy?”

A soft smile appeared on Rafe’s face, his free hand moving to cradle the little boys jaw,

“Hands and vegetables _and _no fuss at bed time and yes, I’ll take you up tomorrow.”

Jamie pulled a face, the little boy known for pushing his bedtime to the limits, but nodded.

“Okay, then,” Rafe murmured, nodding towards the house. “Go wash your hands then.”

As their son hurried to obey the command Danny joined his lovers on the porch, moving instinctively to stroke his hand across the roundness of Evelyn’s stomach. Her second pregnancy had taken them all by surprise and they honestly had no clue who the father was this time, the three of them having been sharing a bed since they’d come clean to Rafe’s parents. The first time Rafe had made love to Evelyn after returning he’d wept tears of joy and regret, hiding his face in her shoulder. The first time he and Danny had made love he had been so overwhelmed by the new feelings he was experiencing that he’d wept tears of wonder and, again, regret whilst Danny had been unable to breath, amazed that the thing he had spent so many years dreaming of was finally happening, that they were one person.

The fact that Evelyn had been there watching had only made the moment more meaningful.

“Come on then, you two,” Evelyn laughed, slipping out of their embrace and heading for the door. “It’s not just little boys that need to wash their hands before they eat their dinner…”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

They still had a long way to go before any of them would call themselves fully recovered from the things they had experienced during the war but one thing all three of them knew for certain; together they would love, laugh and live for the rest of the long and happy lives.

**~ THE END ~ **


End file.
